IVERSIDE UHOQRAPJHICAL QmRIES 



PAUL 
JONES 



H.HAPGOOD 









^f)e iaiVjer?itie "Xioorapfeical ^etie^ 



1. ANDREW JACKSON, by W. G. Brown. 

2. JAMES B. EADS, by Louis How. 

3. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, by Paul E. 

More. 

4. PETER COOPER, by R. W. Raymond. 

5. THOMAS JEFFERSON, by H. C. Mer- 

VVIN. 

6. WILLIAM PEN N, by George Hodges. 

7. GENERAL GRANT, by Walter Allen. 

8. LEWIS AND CLARK, by William R. 

LiGHTON. 

9. JOHN MARSHALL.byjAMEsB. Thayer. 
10. ALEXANDER HAMILTON, by Chas. A. 

Conant. 
n. WASHINGTON IRVING, by H.W.BoYN- 

TON. 

12. PAUL JONES, by Hutchins Hapgood. 

13. STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS, by W, G. 

Brown. 

14. SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN, by H. D. 

Sedgwick, Jr. 

15. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, by Hor- 

ace E. Scudder. 

Each about 140 pages, i6mo, with photogravure 
portrait, vols. 1-9, 75 cents ; other subsequent 
vols., each 65 cents, nei ; School Edition^ 
each, 50 cents, net. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
Boston and New York. 



NUMBER 12 

PAUL JONES 

BY 

HUTCHINS HAPGOOD 



PAUL JONES 



BY 



HUTCHINS HAPGOOD 




m!^^^mk 



BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

1901 






COPYRIGHT, 19OI, BY HUTCHINS HAPGOOD 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published November, rgoi 



[ 

i 

I 



PREFACE 

The amount of material bearing on Paul 
Jones is very large, and consists mainly of 
his extensive correspondence, published and 
unpublished, his journals, memoirs by his 
private secretary and several of his officers, 
published and unpublished impressions by 
his contemporaries, and a number of sketches 
and biographies, some of which contain rich 
collections of his letters and extracts from 
his journals. The biographies which I have 
found most useful are the " Life," by John 
Henry Sherburne, published in 1825, which 
is mainly a collection of Jones's correspond- 
ence ; another volume, composed largely of 
extracts from his letters and journals, called 
the " Janette-Taylor Collection," published 
in 1830 ; the first and only extended narra- 
tive at once readable and impartial, by Alex- 
ander Slidell MacKenzie, published in 1845 ; 
and the recently published " Life " by Au- 



vi PREFACE 

gustus C. Buell. To Mr. Buell's exhaustive 
work I am indebted for considerable original 
material not otherwise accessible to me. On 
the basis of the foregoing mass of material 
I have attempted, in a short sketch, to give 
merely an mibiased account of the man. 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. K\BLY Voyages 1 

II. Cbuisbs of the Providence and the 

Alfred 17 

III. The Cruise of the Ranger ... 30 

IV. Efforts in France to secure a Com- 

mand 44 

V. The Fight with the Serapis . . 56 

VI. Diplomacy at the Texel ... 70 

Vn. Society in Paris 80 

VIII. Private Ambition and Public Busi- 
ness 91 

IX. In the Russian Service .... 108 

X. Last Days 118 



The portrait is from the original by 
C. W. Peak, in Independence Hall 



PAUL JONES 



EARLY VOYAGES 

John Paul, known as Paul Jones, who 
sought restlessly for distinction all his life, 
was born the son of a peasant, in July, 
1747, near the ocean on which he was to 
spend a large portion of his time. His 
father lived in Scotland, near the fishing 
hamlet of Arbigland, county of Kirkcud- 
bright, on the north shore of Solway Firth, 
and made a living for the family of seven 
children by fishing and gardening. The 
mother, Jeanne Macduff, was the daughter 
of a Highlander, and in Paul Jones's blood 
the Scotch canniness and caution of his 
Lowland father was united with the wild 
love of physical action native to his mother's 
race. 



2 PAUL JONES 

Little is known of the early life of the 
fifth and famous child of the Scotch gar- 
dener. He went to the parish school, but 
not for long, for the sea called him at an 
early age. When he was twelve years old 
he could handle his fishing-boat like a vet- 
eran. ^ His skill and daring were the talk 
of the village. One day James Younger, a 
ship-owning merchant from Whitehaven, 
then a principal seaport on the neighboring 
coast of England, visited Arbigland, in 
search of seamen for one of his vessels. It 
happened on that day that Paul Jones was 
out in his yawl when a severe squall arose. 
Mr. Younger and the villagers watched the 
boy bring his small sailing-boat straight 
against the northeaster into the harbor ; and 
Mr. Younger expressed his surprise to Paul's 
father, who remarked : " That 's my boy 
conning the boat, Mr. Younger. This is n't 
much of a squall for him." The result was 
that Mr. Younger took Paid back with him to 
Whitehaven, bound shipmaster's apprentice. 
A little while after that, Paul Jones made 
his first of a series of merchant-ship voyages 



EARLY VOYAGES 3 

to the colonies and the West Indies. He 
continued in Mr. Younger' s employ for four 
years; when lie was seventeen lie made a 
round voyage to America as second mate, 
and was first mate a year later. 

Paul left Mr. Younger 's service in 1766 
and acquired a sixth interest in a ship called 
King George's Packet, in which he went, as 
first mate, to the West Indies. The busi- 
ness instinct, always strong in him, received 
some satisfaction during this voyage by the 
transportation of blacks from Africa to Ja- 
maica, where they were sold as slaves. The 
slave-trade was not regarded at that time 
as dishonorable, but Jones's eagerness to 
engage in " any private enterprise " — a 
phrase constantly used by him — was not 
accompanied by any keen moral sensitive- 
ness. He was always in pursuit of private 
gain or immediate or posthumous honor, and 
his grand sentiments, of which he had many, 
were largely histrionic in type. After one 
more voyage he gave up the slave-trading 
business, probably because he realized that 
no real advancement lay in that line. 



4 PAUL JONES 

On the Jolm 0' Gaunt, in which Jones 
shipped for England, after leaving Jamaica, 
the captain, mate, and all but five of the 
crew died of yellow fever, and the ship was 
taken by Paul into Whitehaven. For this he 
received a share in the cargo, and in 1768, 
when he was twenty-one years old, the own- 
ers of the John (a merchantman sailing from 
the same port) gave him command, and in 
her he made several voyages to America. 
Life on a merchantman is rough enough 
to-day, and was still rougher at that time. 
To maintain discipline at sea requires a 
strong hand and a not too gentle tongue, and 
Jones was fully equipped in these necessaries. 
During the third voyage of the John, when 
fever had greatly reduced the crew, Mungo 
Maxwell, a Jamaica mulatto, became muti- 
nous, and Jones knocked him down with a 
belaying pin. Jones satisfactorily cleared 
himself of the resulting charge of murder, 
and gave, during the trial, one of the earliest 
evidences of his power to express himself 
almost as clearly and strongly in speech as 
in action. 



EARLY VOYAGES 5 

Up to this time in Paul's career there are 
two facts wliich stand out definitely: one, 
that his rough life, in association with com- 
mon seamen from the time that he was 
twelve years old, and his lack of previous 
education, made difficult his becoming what 
he ardently desired to be, — a cultivated 
gentleman. Stories told of his impulsive 
roughness in later life, such as the quaint 
ones of how he used to kick his lieutenants 
and then invite them to dinner, are proba- 
ble enough. It is even more clear, however, 
that in some way he had educated himself, 
not only in seamanship and navigation, but 
also in naval history and in the French and 
Spanish languages, to a considerable degree. 
On a voyage his habit was to study late at 
night, and on shore, instead of carousing 
with liis associates, to hunt out the most dis- 
tinguished person he could find, or otherwise 
to improve his condition. His passion for 
acquisition was enormous, but his early edu- 
cation was so deficient that his handwriting 
always remained that of a schoolboy. He 
dictated many of his innumerable letters, 



6 PAUL JONES 

particularly those in French, which language 
Le spoke incorrectly but fluently. 

It was during Paul's last voyage as cap- 
tain of a merchantman that the event took 
place which determined him to change his 
name and to live in America. Several 
years previously his brother, who had been 
adopted by a Virginia planter named Jones, 
had come at the death of the latter into pos- 
session of the property, and Captain Paul was 
named as next in succession. In 1773, when 
the captain reached the Rappahannock dur- 
ing his final merchant voyage, he found his 
brother dying, and, in accordance with the 
terms of old Jones's wiU, he took the name 
by which he is famous and became the owner 
of the plantation. He consequently gave up 
his sea life and settled down to " calm con- 
templation and poetic ease," as he expressed 
it at a later period. 

But Jones was very far from being con- 
templative, although he certainly was rather 
fond of inflated poetry, and even as a 
planter, surrounded by his acres and his 
slaves, there is no evidence that he led a 



EARLY VOYAGES 1 

lazy life. He seems to have been partly oc- 
cupied in continuing the important acquaint- 
ances he had made at the intervals between 
his voyages and in watching the progress of 
events leading to war with England. Jones 
was given to gallantry, and while on the 
plantation he carried on the social affairs 
which he afterwards continued, as recognized 
hero and chevalier of France, on a magnifi- 
cent scale. He resisted, as he did aU through 
his life, any benevolent efforts on the part 
of the colonial dames to marry him off, and 
as the war grew nearer his activity in pro- 
moting it grew greater. He made frequent 
visits to his patriot friends, met, besides 
Joseph Hewes, whom he had already known, 
Thomas Jefferson, Philip Livingston, Colonel 
Washington and the Lees, and was later, if 
not at this time, in an intimate official rela- 
tion with Robert and Gouverneur Morris. 
In Jones's intercourse with these men he 
showed himself one of the most fiery of. 
Whigs. In a letter to Joseph Hewes writ- 
ten in 1774, he tells how a British officer 
made a remark reflecting on the virtue of 



8 PAUL JONES 

colonial women. " I at once knocked Mr. 
Parker down," he adds, in a style that sug- 
gests the straightforward character of his 
official reports. 

Although dueling was at that time the 
conventional method of settling affars of 
that nature, no personal encounter resulted 
between Jones and Mr. Parker. Jones, in- 
deed, did not seem averse to such an issue, 
for he sent a friend to propose pistols, with 
which he was a crack shot. It is neverthe- 
less a striking fact that Paul Jones, the 
desperate fighter, who was certainly as 
brave as any one, and was often placed in 
favorable situations for such settlements, 
never fought a duel. Add to this that his 
temper was quick and passionate, and that 
he had to the full the high-flown sentiments 
of honor of the time, and the fact seems all 
the more remarkable. The truth is that 
Jones was as cautious as he was brave. He 
acted sometimes impulsively, but reflection 
quickly came, and he never manifested a 
dare-devil desire to put his life unnecessarily 
in danger. When there was anything to be 



EARLY VOYAGES 9 

gained by exposing his person, he did it with 
the utmost coolness, but he consistently 
refused to put himself at a disadvantage. 
When, on at least one occasion, he was 
challenged to fight with swords, with which 
he was only moderately skillful, he demanded 
pistols. Fame was Jones's end, and he knew 
that premature death was inconsistent with 
that consummation. 

Although Jones was, at the time, in finan- 
cial difficulties, he no doubt welcomed the 
outbreak of the war. Service in the cause 
of the colonies could not be remunerative, 
and Jones knew it. A privateering com- 
mand would have paid better than a regu- 
lar commission, but Jones constantly refused 
such an appointment ; and yet he has been 
called buccaneer and pirate by many who 
have written about him, including as recent 
writers as Rudyard Kipling, John Morley, 
and Theodore Roosevelt. Nor is it likely 
that a feeling of patriotism led Jones to serve 
the colonies against his native land. The rea- 
son lay in his overpowering desire of action. 
He saw in the service of the colonies an oq- 



10 PAUL JONES 

portunity to employ his energies on a larger 
and more glorious scale than in any other 
way. Service in the British navy in an 
important capacity was impossible for a 
man with no family or position. Jones 
accordingly went in for the highest prize 
within his reach, and with the instinct of 
the true sportsman served well the side he 
had for the time espoused. 

Soon after the battle of Lexington Jones 
wrote a letter to Joseph Hewes, sending 
copies to Jefferson, Robert Morris, and Liv- 
ingston. " I cannot conceive of submission 
to complete slavery. Therefore only war 
is in sight. ... I beg you to keep my 
name in your memory when the Congress 
shall assemble again, and ... to call upon 
me in any capacity which your knowledge 
of my seafaring experience and your opinion 
of my qualifications may dictate." Soon 
after Congress met, a Marine Committee, 
Robert Morris, chairman, was appointed, 
and Jones was requested to report on the 
" proper qualifications of naval officers and 
the kind of armed vessels most desirable for 



EARLY VOYAGES 11 

the service of the United States, keeping in 
view the limited resources of the Congress." 
He was also asked to serve on a committee 
to report upon the availability of the vessels 
at the disposal of Congress. Jones was 
practically the head of this committee, and 
showed the utmost industry and efficiency 
in selecting, arming, and preparing for sea 
the unimportant vessels within the disposi- 
tion of the government. 

At the beginning of the war there was no 
American navy. Some of the colonies had, 
indeed, fitted out merchant vessels with 
armaments, to resist the aggressions of the 
British on their coasts, and in several in- 
stances the cruisers of the enemy had been 
captured while in port by armed citizens. 
The colonial government had empowered 
Washington, as commander in chief, to com- 
mission some of these improvised war vessels 
of the colonies to attack, in the service of 
the " continent," the transports and small 
cruisers of the British, in order to secure 
powder for the Continental army. It was 
not, however, until October of 1775 that 



12 PAUL JONES 

the first official attempt towards the forma- 
tion of a continental, as opposed to a colonial, 
navy, was made. The large merchant marine 
put at the disposal of the new government 
many excellent seamen and skippers and a 
good number of ships, few of them, however, 
adapted for war. To build regular warships 
on a large scale was impossible for a nation 
so badly in need of funds. It was almost 
equally difficult to secure officers trained ii> 
naval matters, for the marine captains, al 
though as a rule good seamen, were utterly 
lacking in naval knowledge and the prin- 
ciples of organization. 

In this state of affairs Paul Jones proved 
a very useful man. He was not only a 
thorough seaman, but had studied the art of 
naval warfare, was in some respects ahead 
of his time in his ideas of armament, and 
was familiar with the organization and his- 
tory of the British navy. In the early de- 
velopment of our navy he played, therefore, 
an important part, not only in equipping and 
arming ships for immediate service, and in 
determining upon the most effective and 



EARLY VOYAGES 13 

practicable kind of vessels to be built, but 
also in laying before the committee a state- 
ment of the necessary requirements for naval 
officers. 

To the request of Congress for reports, 
Jones answered with two remarkable docu- 
ments. One was a long, logical argument 
in favor of swift frigates of a certain size, 
rather than ships of the line, and showed 
thorough knowledge, not only of naval con- 
struction and cost of building, but also of 
the general international situation, and the 
best method of conducting the war on the 
sea. On the latter point he wrote : " Keep- 
ing such a squadron in British waters, 
alarming their coasts, intercepting their 
trade, and descending now and then upon 
their least protected ports, is the only way 
that we, with our slender resources, can 
sensibly affect our enemy by sea-warfare." 
This is an exact outline of the pohcy which 
Jones and other United States captains actu- 
ally carried out. 

Jones also made the statement, wonder- 
fully foreshadowing his own exploits and 



14 PAUL JONES 

their effect, that, " the capture ... of one 
or two of their crack frigates would raise 
us more in the estimation of Europe, where 
we now most of all need countenance, than 
could the defeat or even capture of one of 
their armies on the land here in America. 
And at the same time it would fill all Eng- 
land with dismay. If we show to the world 
that we can beat them afloat with an equal 
force, ship to ship, it will be more than any- 
one else has been able to do in modern 
times, and it will create a great and most 
desirable sentiment of respect and favor 
towards us on the continent of Europe, 
where really, I think, the question of our 
fate must ultimately be determined. 

" Beyond this, if by exceedingly desperate 
fighting, one of our ships shall conquer one 
of theirs of markedly superior force, we 
shall be hailed as the pioneers of a new 
power on the sea, with untold prospects of 
development, and the prestige if not the 
substance of English dominion over the 
ocean will be forever broken. Happy, in- 
deed, will be the lot of the American cap- 



EARLY VOYAGES 15 

tain upon whom fortune shall confer the 
honor of fighting that battle ! " 

Jones was that happy captain, for both 
the events mentioned as highly desirable he 
brought to pass. — 

In the report on the qualifications of naval 
officers Jones showed himself to be quite 
abreast of our own times in the philosophy 
of naval organization, and, moreover, pos- 
sessed of a pen quite capable of expressing, 
always with clearness and dignity and some- 
times with elegance, the full maturity of his 
thought. George Washington, one of whose 
great quahties was the power to know men, 
read this report of Jones and said : " Mr. 
Jones is clearly not only a master mariner 
within the scope of the art of navigation, 
but he also holds a strong and profound 
sense of the political and military weight of 
command on the sea. His powers of useful- 
ness are great and must be constantly kept 
in view." 

Jones was appointed first lieutenant in 
the navy on the 2 2d of December, 1775. 
He was sixth on the list of appointees, the 



16 PAUL JONES 

other five being made captains. Subsequent 
events showed that Jones would have been 
the best man for the first place. He thought 
so himself, but hastened on board his ship 
to serve as lieutenant, and was the first man 
who ever hoisted the American flag on a man- 
of-war, — a spectacular trifle that gave him 
much pleasure. 



n 



CRUISES OF THE PROVIDENCE AND THE 
ALFRED 

The infant squadron of the United States, 
under the command of Ezek Hopkins, con- 
sisting of the Alfred, of which Jones was 
the first lieutenant, the Columbus, the An- 
dria Doria, and the Cabot, sailed in Febru- 
ary, 1776, against Fort Nassau, New Provi- 
dence Island, in the Bahamas. The only 
vessel of any force in the squadron was the 
Alfred, an East Indiaman, which Jones had 
armed with twenty-four nine-pounders on 
the gun-deck, and six six-pounders on the 
quarter-deck. The only officer in the fleet 
who, with the exception of Jones, ever 
showed any ability was Nicholas Biddle of 
the Doria. The expedition, consequently, 
was sufficiently inglorious. A barren de- 
scent was made on New Providence Island, 
and later the fleet was engaged with the 



18 PAUL JONES 

British sloop of war Glasgow, wMcli, in spite 
of the odds against her, seems to have had 
the best of the encounter. Jones was sta- 
tioned between decks to command the Al- 
fred's first battery, which he trained on the 
enemy with his usual efficiency. He says in 
his journal what was evidently true : " Mr. 
Jones, therefore, did his duty ; and as he 
had no direction whatever, either of the gen- 
eral disposition of the squadron, or the sails 
and helm of the Alfred, he can stand charged 
with no part of the disgrace of that night." 

A number of courts-martial resulted from 
this inept affair and from other initial mis- 
takes. Captain Hazard of the Providence, a 
sloop of war of fourteen guns and 103 men, 
was dismissed from the service, and Jones 
was put in command of the ship. " This 
proves," said Jones, "that Mr. Jones did his 
duty on the Providence expedition." 

Jones continued to do his duty by making 
a number of energetic descents on the ene- 
my's shipping. His method was to hunt out 
the merchant vessels in harbor, whence they 
could not escape, rather than to search for 



CRUISES IN WESTERN WATERS 19 

them on the open sea. In June, 1776, he 
cruised in the Providence from Bermuda 
to the Banks of Newfoundland, a region in- 
fested with the war vessels of the British, 
captured sixteen vessels, made an attack on 
Canso, Nova Scotia, thereby releasing several 
American prisoners, burned three vessels be- 
longing to the Cape Breton fishery, and in a 
descent on the Isle of Madame destroyed 
several fishing smacks. He twice escaped, 
through superior seamanship, from heavy 
English frigates. One of these strong frig- 
ates, the Milford, continued to fire from a 
great distance, after the little Providence 
was out of danger. Of this Jones wrote : 
" He excited my contempt so much, by his 
continued firing, at more than twice the 
proper distance, that when he rounded to, 
to give his broadside, I ordered my marine 
officer to return the salute with only a single 
musket." 

While Jones was on this cruise his plan- 
tation was ravaged by the British — build- 
ings burned, live stock destroyed, and slaves 
carried off. He was dependent upon the 



20 PAUL JONES 

income from this estate, having drawn up 
to that time only £60 from the government, 
not for pay, but for the expense of enlisting 
seamen. On his return to port he wrote to 
Mr. Hewes : " It thus appears that I have 
no fortune left but my sword, and no pro- 
spect except that of getting alongside the 
enemy." 

It was during the same cruise that Jones, 
by the act of Congress of October 10, 1776, 
was made captain in the United States navy, 
an appointment that brought him more bitter- 
ness of spirit than pleasure, for he was only 
number eighteen in the list of appointees. 
This was an injustice which Jones never for- 
got, and to which he referred at intervals all 
through his life. He thought he ought to 
have been not lower than sixth in rank, be- 
cause, by the law of the previous year, there 
were only five captains ahead of him. In 
the mean time, too, he had done good service, 
while the new captains ranking above him 
were untried. It was no doubt an instance 
of political influence outweighing practical 
service, and Jones was entitled to feel ag- 



CRUISES IN WESTERN WATERS 21 

grieved, — a privilege he was not likely to 
forego. Rank was to him a passion, not 
merely because it would enable him to be 
more effective, but for its own sake. He 
liked all the signs of display, — busts, epau- 
lets, medals, marks of honor of all kinds. 
" How near to the heart," he wrote, " of 
every military officer is rank, which opens 
the door to glory ! " 

In regard to this appointment he wrote 
Thomas Jefferson a bitter and sarcastic let- 
ter. He attributed the injustice to the de- 
sire of John Adams to create captains from 
among the " respectable skippers " of New 
England. " If their fate," he wrote, " shall 
be like that of his share in the first five cap- 
tains last year, I can only say that Mr. 
Adams has probably provided for a greater 
number of courts-martial than of naval vic- 
tories ! You are weU aware, honored sir, 
that I have no family connections at my 
back, but rest my case whoUy on what I 
do. As I survey the list of twelve captains 
who have been newly jumped over me by 
the act of October 10th, I cannot help see- 



22 PAUL JONES 

ing that all but three are persons of high 
family connection in the bailiwick of Mr. 
Adams ! " 

He wrote, at this time and later, many- 
vehement letters about these " skippers." 
To Joseph Hewes : " There are characters 
among the thirteen on the list who are truly 
contemptible — with such, as a private gen- 
tleman, I would disdain to sit down — I 
would disdain to be acquainted. . . . Until 
they give proof of their superior ability, I 
never shall acknowledge them as my senior 
officers — I never will act under their com- 
mand." He wrote to Robert Morris : 
"... Nor will I ever draw my sword under 
the conunand of any man who was not in 
the service as early as myself, unless he hath 
merited a preference by his superior services 
or abiHties." In these and similar remarks, 
Jones did not show that sense of absolute 
subordination which he had said, in his re- 
port on the qualifications of naval officers, 
was of prime importance, and which he 
strenuously demanded from his inferiors in 
rank. He was always jealous of any supe- 



CRUISES IN WESTERN WATERS 23 

rior in his own line, but, fortunately, after 
his first cruise, he was always the ranking 
officer on his ship. 

Jones protested, however, without avail, 
but on the 4th of November, 1776, he was 
put in command of the Alfred, and with the 
Providence in company made a cruise of 
about a month, captured seven merchant ships 
of the enemy, several of them carrying valu- 
able supplies to the army, and again cleverly 
avoided the superior British frigates. Com- 
plaining of the action of the Providence, 
" which gave him the slip in the night," as 
he put it, Jones wrote Hewes : " If such 
doings are permitted, the navy will never 
rise above contempt ! . . . the aforesaid 
noble captain doth not understand the first 
case of plain Trigonometry." On the subject 
of the navy he wrote Robert Morris, at a 
later period : " The navy is in a wretched 
condition. It wants a man of ability at its 
head who could bring on a purgation, and dis- 
tinguish between the abilities of a gentleman 
and those of a mere sailor or boatswain's 
mate." In still another letter : " If my feeble 



24 PAUL JONES 

voice is heard when I return to Philadelphia, 
our navy matters will assume a better face." 
Again, as late as 1782, he wrote Captain 
O'Neill : " I am altogether in the dark about 
what has been done to reestablish the credit 
of our marine. In the course of near seven 
years' service I have continually suggested 
what has occurred to me as most likely to 
promote its honor and render it serviceable ; 
but my voice has been like a cry in the wil- 
derness." 

After his return from the cruise in the 
Alfred, Jones served on the Board of Advice 
to the Marine Committee, and was very use- 
ful in many ways. He urged strongly the 
necessity of making a cruise in European 
waters for the sake of moral prestige, — he, 
of course, to be in command of the squadron. 
His energy and dashing character made a 
strong impression on Lafayette, who was 
then in the country, and who heartily sup- 
ported Jones in the projected scheme. 
Lafayette was one of the strongest advocates 
for an alliance between the colonies and 
France, and believed that a fleet fitted out in 



CRUISES IN WESTERN WATERS 25 

French ports under the United States flag 
would not only help out the weak colonial 
navy, but would precipitate war between 
England and France. He wrote a letter to 
General Washington strongly recommending 
Jones as leader of such an undertaking. 
About the same time Jones had an inter- 
view with Washington to appeal against 
what he deemed another injustice. The 
Trumbull, one of the fine new frigates just 
completed and built in accordance with 
Jones's recommendations, was placed under 
the command of Captain Saltonstall, who had 
been captain of the Alfred when Jones was 
first lieutenant of the same ship, and against 
whom the latter had made charges of incom- 
petence. Jones did not get the Trumbull, 
but the interview was probably instrumental 
in procuring an order from the Marine Com- 
mittee for Jones to enlist seamen for a Eu- 
ropean cruise. On June 14, 1777, Congress 
appointed him to the command of the sloop 
of war Kanger, eighteen guns, and on the 
same day the permanent flag of the United 
States was determined upon. Jones, as 



26 PAUL JONES 

usual, saw his spectacular opportunity and 
said : " That flag and I are twins ; born the 
same hour from the same womb of destiny. 
We cannot be parted in life or in death. So 
long as we can float, we shall float together. 
If we must sink, we shall go down as one ! " 

Jones, with the Ranger, sailed for France 
'under the Stars and Stripes November 1, 
1777, bearing with him dispatches to the 
American commissioners, the news of Bur- 
goyne's surrender, and instructions from the 
Marine Committee to the commissioners to 
invest him with a fine swift-sailing frigate. 
On his arrival at Nantes he immediately sent 
to the commissioners — Benjamin Franklin, 
Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee — a letter de- 
veloping his general scheme of anno3dng the 
enemy. " It seems to be our most natu- 
ral province," he wrote, " to surprise their 
defenseless places, and thereby divert their 
attention and draw it from our own coasts." 

It had been the intention of the commis- 
sioners to give Jones the Indien, a fine 
strong frigate building secretly at Amster- 
dam. But this proved to be one more of 



CRUISES IN WESTERN WATERS 27 

Jones's many disappointments, for the Brit- 
ish minister to the Netherlands discovered 
the destination of the vessel and protested 
to the States-General. The result was 
that the commissioners were forced to sell 
the ship to France, to keep her out of 
the hands of England, and Jones was com- 
pelled to make his invasion in the Ranger. 
While proceeding in this little sloop to 
L'Orient, for the purpose of fitting her out, 
he met the great French fleet and demanded 
and obtained the first salute ever given the 
United States flag by the war vessels of a 
foreign power. He wrote to the Marine 
Committee triumphantly : "I am happy 
in having it in my power to congratulate 
you on my having seen the American flag, 
for the first time, recognized in the fullest 
and completest manner by the flag of France. 
... It was in fact an acknowledgment 
of American independence." As the se- 
cret treaty between France and the United 
States was signed about that time, it per- 
haps needed less than the pertinacity of 
Paul Jones to extract a salute from the im- 



28 PAUL JONES 

perial fleet. Shortly before sailing on his 
first famous cruise, the restless man sent 
Silas Deane a letter proposing a plan of 
operations for the French fleet in the com- 
ing war with England. The scheme was 
for the superior French fleet to attack the 
English fleet under Lord Howe, and destroy 
it or block it up in the Delaware. Jones 
said in his journal that the plan, which was 
adopted, would have succeeded if it had been 
put in immediate execution, and complained 
because the credit of the scheme had been 
given to others. 

This was only one of the bits of business 
which the energetic Jones transacted before 
he sailed in the Ranger to harass England. 
He wrote, as usual, innumerable letters, 
proposing, condemning, recommending. He 
had trouble with an insubordinate first lieu- 
tenant. He began, too, his social career in 
France. It was then that he met the 
Duchesse de Chartres, great-granddaughter 
of Louis XIV. and mother of Louis Philippe, 
who at a later time caUed Jones the Bayard 
of the Sea, and whom Jones at that time 



CRUISES IN WESTERN WATERS 29 

promised " to lay an English frigate at her 
feet." He kept his word in spirit, for years 
afterwards he gave her the sword of Captain 
Pearson, commander of his famous prize, the 
Serapis. 



Ill 

THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 

Jones started on his cruise in the Ranger 
April 10, 1778, and, after taking several 
unimportant prizes on the way to the Irish 
Channel, decided to make a descent upon 
the town that had served him as headquar- 
ters when he was a merchant sailor, White- 
haven, where he knew there were about 
two hundred and fifty merchant ships, which 
he hoped to destroy; "to put an end," as 
he said, "by one good fire, in England, of 
shipping, to all the burnings in America." 

Owing to contrary winds Jones was un- 
able to make the attack until midnight of 
April 22. His daring scheme was, with the 
small force of thirty-two men in two small 
boats, to land in a hostile port, defended by 
two forts, surprise the sleeping inhabitants, 
and burn the ships before the people could 
assemble against him. By the time the 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 31 

boats reached the outer pier, day had 
dawned and no time was to be lost. The 
forts were surprised and taken, the guns 
spiked by Jones with his own hand; but 
while he was thus occupied his officers had 
failed to fire the shipping, in accordance 
with his orders, Lieutenant Wallingford 
stating as an excuse that " nothing could be 
gained by burning poor people's property." 
Jones thought otherwise, however ; and 
although the townspeople were beginning to 
assemble in consequence of the pistols that 
had been fired in capturing the forts, he 
made fire in the steerage of a large ship, 
closely surrounded by many others, and an 
enormous conflagration ensued. He stood, 
pistol in hand, near the burning wreck, and 
kept off the constantly increasing crowd un- 
til the sun was an hour high, when he and 
his men retired to the Ranger, taking away 
with them three of the captured soldiers, 
" as a sample," Jones said, and followed by 
the eyes of the gaping multitude of English 
country folk. 

Although the amount of property de- 



32 PAUL JONES 

stroyed by this raid was small, the impor- 
tance of it was considerable, and is well 
stated by Jones himself, who, if proper al- 
lowance is made for the effects of his vanity, 
is, as a rule, his own best biographer : " The 
moral effect of it was very great," he writes, 
"as it taught the English that the fancied se- 
curity of their coasts was a myth, and thereby 
compelled their government to take expen- 
sive measures for the defense of numerous 
ports hitherto relying for protection wholly 
on the vigilance and supposed omnipotence 
of their navy. It also doubled or more the 
rates of insurance, which in the long run 
proved the most grievous damage of all." 

On the same day Jones made a descent 
on the estate of the Earl of Selkirk, near his 
old home in Kirkcudbright, with the inten- 
tion of carrying off the earl as a hostage. 
But the earl was not at home, and Jones 
consented, he says, to let his men, mutinous 
and greedy, seize the Selkirk family plate, 
which Jones put himseK at a great deal of 
trouble and some expense to restore at a 
later date. This incident is interesting 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 33 

chiefly as it was the cause of a letter iUiis- 
trative of Jones's character, sent by him to 
the Countess of Selkirk, who was present at 
the time of the raid. After stating in 
rather inflatedly polite terms that he could 
not well restrain his men from the raid, 
Jones promised to return the plate, con- 
demned the brutalities of the English, spoke 
of the horrors of war, boasted of his victory 
over the Drake the evening following the 
raid, spoke of the English dead and his 
chivalrous treatment of them, — "I buried 
ihem in a spacious grave, with the honors 
due to the memory of the brave," — and 
then made the following rather amusing 
statements : " Though I have drawn my 
sword in the present generous struggle for 
the rights of men, yet I am not in arms as 
an American, nor am I in pursuit of riches. 
My fortune is liberal enough, having no 
wife nor family, and having lived long 
enough to know that riches cannot secure 
happiness. I profess myself a citizen of the 
world, totally unfettered by the little mean 
distinctions of climate or of country, which 



34 PAUL JONES 

diminish the benevolence of the heart and 
set bounds to philanthropy. Before this 
war had begun, I had, at an early time of 
life, withdrawn from sea service in favor of 
' calm contemplation and poetic ease.' I 
have sacrificed not only my favorite scheme 
of life, but the softer affections of the heart 
and my prospects of domestic happiness, 
and I am ready to sacrifice my life also with 
cheerfulness if that forfeiture could restore 
peace among mankind. ... I hope this 
cruel contest will soon be closed ; but should 
it continue, I wage no war with the fair. I 
acknowledge their force, and bend before it 
with submission." 

Jones was probably sincere when he wrote 
that letter, although it is full of misstate- 
ments. He was not a self-conscious man 
and did not analyze his motives very care- 
fully. He always posed, with perfect sin- 
cerity, as a hero, and when he had to do 
with a distinguished woman his exalted 
words exactly expressed, no doubt, his senti- 
ments. 

Jones's next exploit was the famous cap- 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 35 

ture of the Drake on April 23. Previous 
to the attack on Whitehaven, while off Car- 
rickfergus, he had conceived the bold project 
of running into Belfast Loch, where the 
British man-of-war Drake, of twenty guns, 
was at anchor ; where he hoped to overlay the 
Drake's cable, f aU foul of her bow, and thus, 
with her decks exposed to the Eanger's mus- 
ketry, to board. He did, indeed, enter the 
harbor at night, but failed after repeated 
efforts, on account of the strong wind, to get 
in a proper position to board. Three days 
later, after the Earl of Selkirk affair, Jones 
was again off Carrickfergus, looking for the 
Drake, which, having heard of his devasta- 
tions from the alarmed country people, sailed 
out to punish the invader of the sacred soil 
of England. 'The two sloops of war were 
very nearly matched, though the Drake tech- 
nically rated at twenty guns and the Ranger at 
eighteen. When they came within range of 
one another they hoisted their colors almost 
at the same time, but the Drake hailed : — 

"What ship is that?" 

Jones directed the sailing-master to answer : 



36 PAUL JONES 

" The American Continental ship Ranger. 
We are waiting for you. Come on. The 
sun is now near setting, and it is time to 
begin." 

The Eanger then opened fire with a full 
broadside. The Drake rephed with the same, 
and the two ships ran along together at close 
quarters, pouring in broadsides for more than 
an hour, when the enemy called for quarter. 
The action had been, as Jones said in his 
terse official report, " warm, close, and obsti- 
nate." There was little manoeuvring, just 
straight fighting, the victory being due, ac- 
cording to Jones, to the superior gunnery of 
the Americans. At first Jones's gunners 
hulled the Drake, as she rolled, below the 
water-line, but Jones desired to take the en- 
emy's ship as a prize, rather than to sink her, 
and told his men so. 

" The alert fellows," he said in a letter to 
Joseph Hewes, " instantly took this hint and 
began firing as their muzzles rose, by which 
practice they soon crippled the Drake's spars 
and rigging, and made her an unmanage- 
able log on the water. I am persuaded that 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 37 

if I had not advised them to this effect, my 
gunners would have sunk the Drake in an 
hour ! As it was, we had to put spare sails 
over the side after she struck, to keep her 
afloat, and careen her as much as we could 
the next day to plug the holes they had 
already made between wind and water." 

The Drake, indeed, was almost a wreck, 
while the Ranger was little injured. Jones 
lost only two men killed and six wounded, 
to the enemy's approximate loss of forty-two 
killed and wounded. It was the first battle 
of the war which resulted in the capture 
of a regular British man-of-war by a ship of 
equal if not inferior force. The Drake be- 
longed to a regularly established navy, not 
accustomed to defeat. Perhaps that fact in- 
spired her commander with overconfidence, 
but McKenzie's statement of the cause of the 
victory is no doubt correct : " The result," 
he said, " was eminently due to the skill and 
courage of Jones, and his inflexible resolution 
to conquer." That resolution, which was 
indeed a characteristic of Jones, reached on 
at least one occasion, that of the later battle 



38 PAUL JONES 

with the Serapis, a degree of inflexibility 
which amounted to genius. 

The effect of this bold cruise was great. 
Jones had not, however, been the only Amer- 
ican captain, by any means, to render good 
service in destroying the commerce of the 
enemy and in annoying the British coast. 
Before the French alliance more than six 
hundred British vessels fell a prey to Amer- 
ican cruisers, mainly privateers. There were, 
likewise, captains in the regular United 
States navy who had before this cruise of 
Jones's borne the flag to Europe. The first 
of these was the gallant Wickes, in the 
summer of 1777. Though Jones was not 
the first captain, therefore, to make a bril- 
liant and destructive cruise in the English 
Channel, he was nevertheless the first to in- 
spire terror among the inhabitants by in- 
cursions inshore. The cruise of the little 
Ranger showed that the British, when they 
ravaged the coast of New England, might 
expect effective retaliation on their own 
shores ; and the capture of the Drake inspired 
France, then about to take arms in support 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 39 

of the American cause, by the realization of 
what they themselves had longed to do — to 
worst England on the high seas — with in- 
creased respect for their aUies. It filled 
Great Britain with wild, exaggerated, and 
unjust condemnation of Paul Jones, who has 
been looked upon for more than a hundred 
years, and is even to-day in England, by so- 
ber historians, as a bloody-handed, desperate 
buccaneer. The persistent charge, often of 
late refuted, hardly needs refutation, in view 
of the well-authenticated fact that Jones 
never served on a war vessel except under a 
regular commission. Moreover, he was a 
man too ambitious and too sensible to hurt 
his prospects by being anything so low and 
undistinguished as a pirate. 

After the battle with the Drake, Jones 
saw that he would have to bring the cruise 
to a close. His crew of 139 men had, through 
the necessity of manning the several mer- 
chant prizes and the Drake, been reduced to 
eighty-six men, and he consequently put into 
Brest, reluctantly, on the 8th of May, 1778. 
He was there met by the great French fleet, 



40 PAUL JONES 

then actually at war with England, and he and 
his prize were admired by visiting French 
officers. From that time Jones, hated in 
England, was a hero in France, feted when- 
ever he was at the capital, and favored by 
fair ladies. 

He was a hero, however, with a thorny 
path all through life. He arrived at Brest 
with a miserably clothed, wholly unpaid, 
discontented, and partly mutinous crew. 
During the voyage his first lieutenant, 
Simpson, had stirred up dissatisfaction 
among the men, and had refused to obey 
orders, for which Jones had him put in irons. 
The unpaid men, not assigning their troubles 
to the true but unseen cause, the poverty 
of the government, easily believed that their 
captain was responsible for all their ills. 
Under no conditions, however, was Jones 
likely to be popular with the greater number 
of his men, for the energetic man was bent 
on making them, as well as himself, work for 
glory to the uttermost, and the common run 
of seamen care more for ease and pelf than 
for fame. Jones's unpopularity with the 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 41 

crew of the Ranger is attested by a passage 
from the diary of Ezra Green, one of Jones's 
officers, on the occasion, at a later period, 
of the Kanger's sailing back to America : 
" This day Thomas Simpson, Esq., came 
on board with orders to take command of 
the Ranger ; to the joy and satisfaction of 
the whole ship's company." 

With the impidsive inconsistency which, 
in spite of his shrewdness, sometimes marked 
his conduct, Jones alternately demanded a 
court-martial for Simpson and recommended 
him to the command of the Ranger, he him- 
self hoping for a more important vessel ; it 
was Jones's own conduct, as much as any 
other circumstance, which finally resulted in 
the sailing away of the Ranger under the 
mutinous Simpson. With the frankness 
customary with him when not writing to 
anybody particularly distinguished, Jones 
wrote Simpson, at one stage of their quarrel : 
" The trouble with you, Mr. Simpson, is that 
you have the heart of a lion and the head of 
a sheep." 

Even more annoying to the imperious and 



42 PAUL JONES 

high-handed Jones than the trouble with 
Simpson was the manner in which, on his 
arrival at Brest, the commissioners refused 
to honor his draft for 24,000 livres. He 
held a letter of credit authorizing him to 
draw on the commissioners for money to 
defray necessary expenses; but instead of 
dealing with the regular American agent at 
Brest, he placed his order with a Brest mer- 
chant, who, when Jones's draft was returned 
dishonored, stopped his supplies. Jones 
thereupon wrote the commissioners : " I know 
not where or how to provide food for to-mor- 
row's dinner to feed the great number of 
mouths that depend on me for food. Are 
then the Continental ships of war to depend 
on sale of their prizes for the daily dinner of 
their men ? Publish it not ' in Gath ' ! " 

He then, without authority, but very pos- 
sibly forced by the necessities of his crew, 
sold one of his prizes, with the money from 
which he paid the Brest merchant. Of this 
act he said : "I could not waste time dis- 
cussing questions of authority when my crew 
and prisoners were starving." 



THE CRUISE OF THE RANGER 43 

The point of view of the commissioners is 
tersely expressed in a letter from them to the 
French Minister of Marine, de Sartine, June 
15, 1778 : " We think it extremely irregu- 
lar .. . in captains of ships of war to draw 
for any sums they please without previous 
notice and express permission. . . . Captain 
Jones has had of us near a hundred thousand 
livres for such purposes [necessaries]." 

The frugahty of Benjamin Franklin, the 
most important commissioner, is well known, 
and also the financial straits of the country 
at that time. That Jones was in a difficult 
position at Brest is certain, and he perhaps 
asked for no more than he needed. But 
that he was naturally inclined to extravagant 
expenditure there can be no doubt, — a fact 
that will appear saliently in a later stage of 
this narrative. 



IV 

EFFORTS IN FEANCE TO SECURE A 
COMMAND 

War having broken out between England 
and France, Jones was detained in Europe, 
instead of sailing home in the Ranger, through 
the request of the French Minister of Marine, 
de Sartine, who wished an important com- 
mand to be assigned to the famous conqueror 
of the Drake. The difficulties, however, in 
the way of doing so were great. The com- 
missioners had few resources, and one of 
them, Arthur Lee, was hostile to Jones. 
Moreover the French government naturally 
thought first of its own officers, of whom 
there were too many for the available vessels. 
Several privateering expeditions were sug- 
gested to Jones, which he quite justly rejected. 
Several opportunities had also been given 
him for small commands, which he had like- 
wise rejected. His manner in doing so could 



TRIES TO GET A COMMAND 45 

not exactly be called diplomatic. He wrote 
M. Chaumont, that patriotic and benevolent 
gentleman whom Jones alternately flattered 
and reviled, a rather typical letter : "I wish 
to have no connection with any ship that does 
not sail fast ; for I intend to go in harni's 
way. You know, I believe, that this is not 
every one's intention. Therefore buy a frig- 
ate that sails fast, and that is sufficiently 
large to carry twenty-six or twenty-eight guns 
on one deck. I would rather be shot ashore 
than sent to sea in such things as the armed 
prizes I have described." 

The innumerable delays which conse- 
quently intervened between his arrival at 
Brest, in May, 1778, and his departure on his 
next cruise a year later, in June, 1779, put 
the active Scotchman in a state of constant 
irritation. He continued his dunning cor- 
respondence with the greatest energy, alter- 
nately cajoling, proposing, complaining, beg- 
ging to be sent on some important enterprise. 
He wrote innumerable letters to de Sartine, 
Franklin, the Due de Rochefoucauld, de 
Chaumont, and many others, and finally to the 



46 PAUL JONES 

king himself, with whom he afterwards had 
an interview. The statement of his wrongs 
in his letter to the king, reiterated in letters 
to many others, involves an account of the 
many promises de Sartine had made and 
broken, and of Jones's various important pro- 
posals for the public good, which had been 
slighted. 

" Thus, sire," he writes, " have I been 
chained down to shameful inactivity for 
nearly five months. I have lost the best 
season of the year and such opportunities of 
serving my country and acquiring honor as 
I can hardly expect again in this war ; and 
to my infinite mortification, having no com- 
mand, I am considered everywhere an officer 
cast off and in disgrace for secret reasons." 

Jones's pertinacity and perseverance in 
working for a command are quite on a par 
with his indomitable resolution in battle, and 
he was finally rewarded, probably through 
the king's direct order, by being put in 
command of a small squadron, with which 
he made the cruise resulting in the capture 
of the Serapis and in his own fame. 



TRIES TO GET A COMMAND 47 

Jones was highly delighted with the ap- 
pointment, but his troubles continued in full 
measure, and to all his troubles Jones gave 
wide and frequent publicity. All the ships 
of his squadron, with the exception of the 
AlHance, were French, largely officered and 
manned by Frenchmen. The expense of 
fitting out the expedition was the king's. 
The flag and the commissions of the officers 
were American. The object of the French 
government was to secure the services of the 
marauding Jones against the coasts and ship- 
ping of England. This could better be done 
under the United States flag than under 
that of France ; for the rules of civilized war- 
fare had up to that time prevented the 
British from ravaging the coasts of France 
as they had those of rebel America, and 
France was therefore not morally justified 
in harassing the English shipping and coasts 
directly ; as, on the principle of retaliation, 
it was fair for America to do. 

This peculiar character of the expedition 
brought with it many drawbacks and diffi- 
culties for the unfortunate Jones. He had 



48 PAUL JONES 

a motley array of ships, — those which were 
left over after the French officers had been 
satisfied. The flagship, the Bonhomme Rich- 
ard, was a worn-out old East Indiaman, 
which Jones refitted and armed with six 
eighteen - pounders, twenty - eight twelve- 
pounders, and eight nine-pounders — a bat- 
tery of forty-two guns. The crew of 375, of 
many nationalities, contained, when the fleet 
sailed, only about fifty Americans ; but for- 
tunately, a few days later, Jones was com- 
pelled to put back to port, where he was 
unexpectedly able, owing to a recent ex- 
change of prisoners, to get rid of some of 
his aliens, and to secure 114 American offi- 
cers and sailors, who proved to be the back- 
bone of the Richard's crew. The Alliance, 
the only American ship, was a good frigate 
rating as a large thirty-two or medium 
thirty-six, but captained by a mad French- 
man in the American service, Landais, who 
refused to obey Jones, and in the important 
fight with the Serapis turned his guns against 
his commander. The PaUas, thirty-two guns, 
the Vengeance, twelve guns, and the little 



TRIES TO GET A COMMAND 49 

Cerf were all officered and manned by 
Frenchmen. 

The greatest hindrance, however, to the 
efficiency of the squadron was the famous 
concordat^ or agreement between the cap- 
tains, which Jones was compelled to sign 
just before sailing. The terms, indeed, 
which related largely to the distribution of 
prize money, left Jones in the position of 
commander in chief, but the fact that there 
was any agreement whatever between Jones 
and his subordinates weakened his authority. 
Of this, as of so many other injustices, Jones 
complained most bitterly all through his sub- 
sequent life. He signed it, however, because, 
he said in his journal, he feared that he 
would otherwise be removed from his posi- 
tion as commodore. In a letter to Hewes he 
gave Franklin's command as the cause. 

The squadron, accompanied at the outset 
by two French privateers, sailed finally from 
L' Orient, after one futile attempt, August 
14, 1779, and made during the first forty 
days of the fifty days' cruise a number of 
unimportant prizes. On the 18th of Au- 



50 PAUL JONES 

gust, the privateer Monsieur, which was not 
bound by the concordat^ took a prize, which 
the captain of the Monsieur rifled, and then 
ordered into port. Jones, however, opposed 
the captain's order, and sent the prize to 
L' Orient, whereupon the Monsieur parted 
company with the squadron. According to 
Fanning, one of Jones's midshipmen, who 
has left a spirited account of the cruise, 
Jones attempted to prevent the departure of 
the privateer by force, and when she escaped 
was so angry that he " struck several of his 
officers with his speaking trumpet over their 
heads," and confined one of them below, but 
immediately afterwards invited him to din- 
ner. " Thus it was with Jones," says Fan- 
ning, " passionate to the highest degree one 
minute, and the next ready to make a recon- 
ciHation." 

The defection of the Monsieur was, how- 
ever, only the beginning of Jones's troubles 
with the insubordinate officers. While at- 
tempting to capture a brigantine, Jones, 
through the desertion of some of his English 
sailors, lost two of his small boats, for which 



TRIES TO GET A COMMAND 61 

he was bitterly and unjustly reproached by 
the crazy, incompetent, and greedy Landais, 
captain of the Alliance, who said that here- 
after he would chase in the manner he saw 
fit. Shortly afterwards, the Cerf abruptly 
left the fleet, and the other privateer also 
went off on its own account. Jones was left 
with only the Bonhomme Richard, the Pal- 
las, the Vengeance, and the Alliance ; and 
it would have been better, as the result 
showed, if the last-mentioned vessel and its 
extraordinary captain had also decamped at 
tliis time for good. Landais paid no atten- 
tion to Jones's signals, but left the squadron 
for days, unfortunately returning. Against 
Jones's orders he sent two prizes into Ber- 
gen, Norway, where they were given by the 
Danish government to the English, and were 
for many years after the war a source of 
trouble between Denmark and the United 
States. 

Jones was also compelled to treat with 
the other French captains, and several times 
modified his course in compliance with their 
demands. He had formed a daring design 



52 PAUL JONES 

to lay Leith, on the coast of Scotland, and 
perhaps Edinburgh, under contribution, but 
first he had to argue the matter with his 
captains. Fanning says : " Jones displayed 
so artfully his arguments in favor of his 
plan that it was agreed pretty unanimously 
to put it in immediate execution." Jones's 
art was manifested in this instance, accord- 
ing to Ms account, by showing the cap- 
tains " a large heap of gold at the end of 
the prospect." During this enforced con- 
ference, however, the wind shifted, and the 
undertaking had to be given up. Fanning 
quaintly remarks : " AU his [Jones's] vast 
projects of wealth and aggrandizement be- 
came at once a shadow that passeth away, 
never more to appear again ! " 

Jones, however, said that he would have 
succeeded, even at this late hour, if his plan 
had been followed, and showed a touch 
of the weak side of his character when he 
added : " Nothing prevented me from pur- 
suing my design but the reproach that would 
have been cast upon my character, as a man 
of prudence, had the enterprise miscarried. 



TRIES TO GET A COMMAND 53 

It would have been said : ' Was lie not fore- 
warned by Captain Cottineau and others?' " 

With his old ship, his motley squadron, 
and his insubordinate officers, Jones then 
cruised along the Yorkshire coast, destroyed 
or captured a number of vessels, and was 
preparing to end his voyage at the Texel, 
Holland, when chance threw in his way the 
opportunity which he so greatly embraced. 

On the 23d of September the squadron 
was chasing a ship off Flamborough Head, 
when the Baltic fleet of merchantmen, for 
which Jones had been looking, hove in sight. 
The commodore hoisted the signal for a gen- 
eral chase. Landais, however, ignored the 
signal and went off by himself. The mer- 
chant ships, when they saw Jones's squadi'on 
bearing down upon them, made for the shore 
and escaped, protected by two ships of war, 
frigates, which stood out and made prepara- 
tions to fight, in order to save their convoy. 

These British ships of war were the Sera- 
pis, a new frigate of forty-four guns, and 
the Countess of Scarborough, twenty guns. 
The Alliance, at that time, which was late 



54 PAUL JONES 

in the afternoon, was not in sight, and the 
little Vengeance, which had been sent to 
look for Landais, was also not available. 
There were, therefore, two ships on each 
side, and Jones ordered Captain Cottineau, 
of the Pallas, to look after the Countess of 
Scarborough, while he himself took care of 
the Serapis. Jones never lost his head in 
action, and yet he decided, with that " cool, 
determined bravery," of which Benjamin 
Franklin spoke, and with " that presence of 
mind which never deserted him " in action, 
recorded by Fanning, to engage a ship 
known by him to be the superior of the 
Bonhomme Richard in almost every respect. 
It has been said of Jones by one who fought 
with him that only in battle was he abso- 
lutely at ease : only at times of comparative 
inaction, when he could not exert himself 
fully, was he restless and irritable. On this 
occasion he joyfully engaged a ship which 
threw a weight of metal superior to his by 
three to two, that sailed much faster, and 
was consequently at an advantage in ma- 
noeuvring fcr position, and that had a crew 



TRIES TO GET A COMMAND 55 

equal to that of Jones in numbers, and far 
more disciplined and homogeneous. A battle 
resulted which for desperate fighting has 
never been excelled, and perhaps never 
equaled on the sea. 



THE FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 

Jones crowded on all possible sail, and 
the Bonhomme Richard came within pistol 
shot of the Serapis. It was seven o'clock of 
a fine moonlight night. Captain Pearson, 
of the British ship, then hailed, and was 
answered with a whole broadside from the 
Bonhomme Richard, an unfriendly salute 
which was promptly returned by the British 
ship. 

From the beginning the fight seemed to 
go against the Bonhomme Richard. There 
was hardly any stage of the three and a half 
hours' desperate combat when Jones might 
not, with perfect propriety, have surrendered. 
Hardly had the battle begun when two of 
the six old eighteen-pounders forming the bat- 
tery of the lower gun-deck of the Richard 
exploded, killing the men working them and 
rendering the whole battery useless for the 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 57 

rest of the action. Captain Pearson, per- 
ceiving his advantage in speed and power of 
shot, attempted again and again to pass the 
bow of the Richard and rake her. Jones's 
whole effort, on the other hand, was to close 
with the Serapis and board, knowing that it 
was only a question of time when, in a 
broadside fight, the Richard would be sunk. 
After the broadsiding had continued with 
unremitting fury for about three quarters of 
an hour, and several of the Richard's twelve- 
pounders also had been put out of action, 
Captain Pearson thought he saw an oppor- 
tunity, the Serapis having veered and drawn 
ahead of the Richard, to luff athwart the 
latter's hawse and rake her. But he at- 
tempted the manoeuvre too soon, and perceiv- 
ing that the two ships would be brought 
together if he persisted in his course, he put 
his helm alee, bringing the two vessels in a 
line ; and the Serapis having lost her head- 
way by this evolution, the Richard ran into 
her weather quarter. Jones was quick to 
make his first attempt to board, but he 
could not mass enough men at the point of 



58 PAUL JONES 

contact to succeed, and the sliips soon swung 
apart. 

The Richard, even at this early stage of 
the action, was in a deplorable condition. 
Little of her starboard battery was left. 
Henry Gardner, a gunner during the action, 
stated in his account of the battle that, at 
this time, of the 140 odd officers and men 
stationed in the main gun-deck battery at 
the beginning, over eighty were killed or 
wounded. There were three or four feet of 
water in the hold, caused by the Serapis's 
eighteen-pound shot, which had repeatedly 
pierced the hull of the Richard. 

It is no wonder that Captain Pearson, 
knowing that his enemy was hard put to it, 
thought, after the failure to board, that 
Jones was ready to surrender. 

" Has your ship struck ? " he called, and 
Jones made his famous reply : — 

" I have not yet begun to fight." 

That Jones really made some such reply, 
there is no doubt. Certainly, it was charac- 
teristic enough. Jones fought all his life, 
and yet when he died he had hardly begun 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 59 

the conflict, so many of his ambitious pro- 
jects remained unrealized. 

When the ships had swung apart, the 
broadsiding continued, increasingly to the 
advantage of the Serapis. Had not a lucky 
wind, favorable to the Richard, arisen at 
this point, doubtless her time above water 
would have been short. The veering and 
freshening breeze enabled the Richard to 
blanket the enemy's vessel, which conse- 
quently lost her headway, and another for- 
tunate puff of wind brought the Richard in 
contact with the Serapis in such a way that 
the two vessels lay alongside one another, 
bow to stern, and stern to bow. Jones, 
with his own hand, helped to lash the two 
ships together. The anchor of the Serapis 
fortunately hooked the quarter of the Rich- 
ard, thus binding the frigates still more 
firmly together. 

During: the critical time when Jones was 
bending every nerve to grapple with the 
Serapis, the Alliance made her first appear- 
ance, poured a broadside or two into the 
Richard, and disappeared. Of this remark- 



60 PAUL JONES 

able deed Jones wrote to Dr. Franklin: 
" At last the Alliance appeared, and I now 
thought the battle at an end; but to my 
utter astonishment he discharged a broad- 
side full into the stern of the Bon Homme 
Richard." It is probable that the Serapis 
also suffered from Landais's attack, but not 
so much as the Richard, which lay between 
the other two ships. 

After the Serapis and the Richard had 
been well lashed together, there began a new 
phase of the battle, which had already lasted 
about an hour. There were only three guns 
left in action on the Richard, nine-pounders 
on the quarter-deck, and the ship was badly 
leaking. The eighteen-pounders of the enemy 
had riddled the gun-deck of the American 
ship, rendering her, below-decks, entirely 
untenable. The real fight from this time 
to the end was consequently above-decks. 
Jones abandoned any attempt at great gun 
fire, except by the tlu'ee small pieces on the 
quarter-deck, drew practically his entire re- 
maining crew from below to the uj^per deck 
and the tops, and devoted his attention to 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 61 

sweeping the decks of the enemy by the 
musketry of his French marines from the 
quarter and poop decks, and of the Ameri- 
can sailors in the tops. The crew of the 
Serapis, on the other hand, were forced 
mainly to take refuge in their well-protected 
lower decks, from which they continued to 
fire their great guns into the already riddled 
hull and lower decks of the Richard. 

After the juncture of the vessels Captain 
Pearson made several desperate attempts to 
cut the anchor loose, hoping in that way to 
become free again of the Richard, in which 
case he knew that the battle was his. Jones, 
of course, was equally determined to defend 
the anchor fastenings. He personally di- 
rected the fire of his French marines ag^ainst 
the British in their repeated attempts to 
sever the two ships, to such good purpose 
that not a single British sailor reached the 
coveted goal. So determined was Jones on 
this important point that he took loaded 
muskets from the hands of his French ma- 
rines and shot down several of the British 
with his own hand. 



62 PAUL JONES 

The captain of the French marines, who 
rendered at this important stage of the ac- 
tion such good service, had been wounded 
early in the battle, and the succeeding 
lieutenants had also been either killed or 
disabled. The marines had been greatly 
diminished in numbers and were much dis- 
heartened at the time Jones took personal 
command of them. Nathaniel Fanning viv- 
idly narrates the manner in which Jones 
handled these Frenchmen: "I could dis- 
tinctly hear, amid the crashing of the mus- 
ketry, the great voice of the commodore, 
cheering the French marines in their own 
tongue, uttering such imprecations upon the 
enemy as I never before or since heard in 
French or any other language, exhorting 
them to take good aim, pointing out objects 
for their fire, and frequently giving them 
direct example by taking their loaded mus- 
kets from their hands into his and firing 
himself. In fact, toward the very last, he 
had about him a group of half a dozen 
marines who did nothing but load their fire- 
locks and hand them to the commodore, 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 63 

who fired them from his own shoulder, 
standing on the quarter-deck rail by the 
main topmast backstay." 

A French sailor, Pierre Gerard, who has 
left a memoir of the battle, tells how his 
countrymen responded to Jones's presence : 
" Commodore Jones sprang among the shak- 
ing marines on the quarter-deck like a tiger 
among calves. They responded instantly to 
him. In an instant they were filled with 
courage ! The indomitable spirit, the un- 
conquerable courage of the commodore pen- 
etrated every soul, and every one who saw 
his example or heard his voice became as 
much a hero as himself I " 

Both vessels were at this time, and later, 
on fire in various places. Captain Pearson 
says in his official report that the Serapis 
was on fire no less than ten or twelve times. 
Half the men on both ships had been killed 
or disabled. The leak in the Richard's hold 
grew steadily worse, and the mainmast of 
the Serapis was about to go by the board. 
The Alliance again appeared and, paying no 
heed to Jones's signal to lay the Serapis 



64 PAUL JONES 

alongside, raked both vessels for a few min- 
utes indiscriminately, went serenely on her 
way, and brought her inglorious and inexpli- 
cable part in the action to a close. Captain 
Pearson had, for a moment, towards the end 
of the action, a ray of hope. A gunner on 
the Kichard, thinking the ship was actually 
sinking, called for quarter, but Jones stunned 
him with the butt end of a pistol, and re- 
plied to Pearson, who had again hailed to 
know if the Richard had struck, to quote his 
own report, " in the most determined nega- 
tive." About the same time, the master at 
arms, also belie'vdng the ship to be sinking, 
opened the hatches and released nearly two 
hundred British prisoners, taken in the va- 
rious prizes of the cruise. 

Nothing, apparently, could be more de- 
sperate than the situation of Paul Jones 
then. His guns useless, his ship sinking 
and on fire, half of his crew dead or disabled, 
the Alliance firing into him, a portion of his 
crew panic-stricken, and two hundred British 
prisoners at large on the ship ! But with 
Lieutenant Richard Dale to help him, he 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 65 

boldly ordered the prisoners to man the 
pumps, and continued the fight with undi- 
minished energy. Soon after occurred the 
event which practically decided the battle in 
his favor. He had given orders to drop 
hand grenades from the tops of the Richard 
down through the enemy's main hatch. It 
was by this means that the Serapis had been 
so often set on fire. N^ow at an opportune 
moment, a hand grenade fell among a pile of 
cartridges strung out on the deck of the 
Serapis and caused a terrible explosion, kill- 
ing many men. This seemed to reduce 
materially the fightmg appetite of the British, 
and soon after a party of seamen from the 
Richard, with the dashing John Mayrant at 
their head, boarded the Serapis, and met 
with little resistance. Captain Pearson 
thereupon struck his colors, and the victory 
which marked the zenith of Jones's career, 
and upon which all else in his life merely 
served as commentary, was scored. Captain 
Pearson, in his court-martial, which was a 
formality in the British navy in case of defeat, 
explained Jones's victory in a nutshell : " It 



66 PAUL JONES 

was clearly apparent," he said, " that the 
American ship was dominated by a command- 
ing will of the most unalterable resolution," 
and again, " the extraordinary and unheard- 
of desperate stubbornness of my adversary 
had so depressed the spirits of my people 
that, when more than two hundred had been 
slain or disabled out of 317 all told, I could 
not urge the remnant to further resistance." 

The capture of the British ship, wliich 
took place about half-past ten at night, came 
none too soon, for the old Bonhomme Richard 
was sinking. The flames were extinguished 
by combined efforts of crew and prisoners by 
ten o'clock the next morning, but with seven 
feet of water, constantly increasing in the 
hold, it was then apparent that it was impos- 
sible to keep the old vessel afloat, and men, 
prisoners, and powder were transferred to 
the Serapis. On the morning of the 25th 
Jones obtained, "with inexpressible grief," 
as he said, "the last glimpse of the Bon- 
homme Richard," as she went down. 

The desperate battle fought in the bright 
moonlight was witnessed by many persons in 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 67 

Scarborough and on Flamborough Head, and 
they spread the alarming tidings throughout 
England. In a letter to Robert Morris, 
written soon after, Jones said, of the cruise 
in general : " "We alarmed their coasts pro- 
digiously from Cape Clear round to Hull; 
and had I not been concerned with sons 
of interest I could have done much." 

With his two new prizes (for the Countess 
of Scarborough had after a short action struck 
to the greatly superior Pallas) Jones set off 
for the Texel, with a most dilapidated crew 
and fleet. The Alliance, well called a 
" Comet " by the editor of the Janette-Taylor 
collection of Jones's papers, disappeared again 
after the battle. Landais, whose conduct 
was described by Jones as being that of 
" either a fool, a madman, or a villain," was 
afterwards dismissed the service, but not 
until he had cut up other extraordinary 
pranks. He now went oif with his swift and 
uninjured frigate to the Texel, leaving Jones, 
laden down with prisoners and wounded, un- 
assisted. Of the Richard's crew of 323, 
67 men had been killed, leaving 106 



68 PAUL JONES 

wounded and 150 others to be accommodated 
on the injured Serapis. Then there were 
211 Enghsh prisoners on the Richard at 
the beginning of the action; and of the 332 
(including 8 sick men and 7 non-combatants) 
men composing the crew of the Serapis, there 
were 245 left to be cared for — 134 wounded, 
87 having been killed. There were, con- 
sequently, only 150 well men to look after 
562 wounded and prisoners. Some of the 
latter were afterwards transferred to the 
PaUas, but altogether it was an imwieldy 
fleet which slowly sailed for the Texel, at 
which neutral port Jones arrived October 3, 
none too soon, for as he entered the roads, an 
English squadron, consisting of a sixty-four 
ship of the line and three heavy frigates, 
which had been looking for him, hove in 
sight. 

The effect of the cruise was very great. 
The English people, alarmed and incensed, 
never forgot it. Never before had one of 
their ships of war been conquered by a ves- 
sel of greatly inferior force. Their coasts, 
deemed impregnable, were again invaded by 



\ 



FIGHT WITH THE SERAPIS 69 

the man whom they called, in the blindness 
of their rage, pirate and renegade. Professor 
Houghton, a serious-minded historian, writ- 
ing of Jones said : " His moral character can 
be summed up in one word — detestable." 
English comment on Paul Jones may be 
summed up truthfully in one word, — en- 
venomed. Jones's exploits, moreover, greatly 
increased the prestige of young America, and 
made of himself a still greater hero at home 
and particularly in France. For the rest 
of his life, indeed, Jones, in France especially, 
where spectacles are peculiarly appreciated, 
was the man on horseback, and he enjoyed 
the position intensely. Fanning narrates 
how Jones, while at Amsterdam, soon after 
his arrival in the Texel, " was treated as a 
conqueror. This so elated him with pride, 
that he had the vanity to go into the State 
House, mount the balcony or piazza, and show 
himself in the front thereof, to the populace 
and people of distinction then walking on 
the public parade." 



VI 

DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 

Jones found himseK in a position at the 
Texel whicli demanded all the shrewdness as 
well as the determination of his character. 
Impatient, irritable, and passionate as he 
often was, his judgment was nevertheless 
excellent. Benjamin Franklin, when Jones 
at a later time was again put in a delicate 
situation, wrote him : — 

" You have shown your abilities in fight- 
ing ; you have now an opportunity of show- 
ing the other necessary part in the character 
of a great chief, — your abilities in policy." 

Jones's ability in policy appeared in a more 
favorable light in the Texel than at any other 
period of his career, although too great 
weight has been laid upon the degree of it. 
The important problem to be solved was 
how to induce the Dutch authorities to 
allow him and his battered ships to remain 



DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 71 

for a time in the shelter of their port. 
Jones knew that the attainment of this 
object would help to bring about a rupture 
between England and Holland. The latter 
country was secretly in sympathy with the 
revolted colonies, but eager at that time to 
maintain officially friendly relations with 
England. Consequently, when Jones ar- 
rived with his prizes, the Dutch authorities 
were in a quandary, much aggravated by the 
action of the British minister in Holland, 
Sir Joseph Yorke, who demanded that the 
" pirate's " prizes be delivered up to Eng- 
land. He reiterated his demand to the 
States-General in the following language : 
" I only discharge the orders of his Majesty 
in renewing the most strong and urgent de- 
mand for the seizure and restitution of said 
vessels as well as for the enlargement of 
their crews, who have been seized by the 
pirate, Paul Jones, a Scotchman, a rebel- 
lious subject, and state criminal." 

Jones, in reply to the allegations of the 
British minister, copies of whose letters had 
been sent him, wrote the States-General an 



72 PAUL JONES 

able letter. He inclosed a copy of his com- 
mission from the United States government, 
and then argued that the United States was 
a " sovereign power " and entitled to issue 
such a commission. He pointed out that 
the sovereignty had been recognized by 
France and Spain, and that belligerent 
rights had been recognized by Prussia and 
by Eussia. Only one of Sir Joseph's 
charges he admitted to be true, — that he 
was a Scotchman, but he denied the inference 
made from it, — that he was a " state crim- 
inal." He wrote : " It cannot have escaped 
the attention of Your High Mightinesses 
that every man now giving fealty to the 
cause of American Independence was born 
a British subject." If he were a " state 
criminal," then, he argued. General Wash- 
ington, Benjamin Franldin, and aU other 
American patriots were also " state crim- 
inals." 

Soon after this letter was received the 
States-General passed a resolution declining 
to " consider any question affecting the 
validity of Paul Jones's commission or his 



DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 73 

status as a person." They declined likewise 
" to do anything from which it might law- 
fully be inferred that they recognized the in- 
dependence of the American colonies." They 
also resolved that Paul Jones should be asked 
to leave their port, but not until the wind 
and weather should be favorable. They had 
refused, therefore, to consider Jones as a 
pirate, or to deliver up liis prizes. 

Paul Jones's plan was not to admit that a 
favorable wind had arisen until the last pos- 
sible moment. He did not wish to be taken 
by the strong British fleet waiting for him 
outside the harbor, and he desired, as he said, 
in order to provoke war between Holland 
and England, " to try the patience of the 
English party to the last bit of strain it 
would bear by keeping my anchorage in 
Dutch waters on plea of distress, and at the 
same time I wished to be ready for instant 
departure the moment I saw that the plea of 
distress could no longer be plausibly held." 

The French Minister of Marine, de Sartine, 
however, fearing that ultimately the pressure 
would be so great that the squadron would be 



74 PAUL JONES 

compelled to depart and thus fall into the 
clutches of the British, demanded that the 
French flag, which naturally commanded 
greater respect from Holland than the flag 
of the United States, should be displayed. 
Benjamin Franklin agreed with the French 
minister, but Jones protested : — 

" In vain I expostulated with them that 
by accepting the shelter of the French flag 
I should do exactly of all things what Sir 
Joseph Yorke wished me to do, namely, with- 
draw all pretensions of the United States as 
a party to the situation, and thereby confess 
that the United States claimed no status as 
a sovereign power in a neutral port." 

Jones was forced to yield, the French flag 
was displayed, the command was given to the 
French captain, Cottineau, and Jones retained 
only the Alliance, an American ship, from 
which he was allowed, however, to fly the 
American flag. 

To add to Jones' sorrows de Sartine offered 
him, through the Due de Vauguyan, a French 
commission to command the Alliance as a 
letter of marque. He rejected it with indig- 



DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 75 

nation ; " My rank from the beginning knew 
no superior in the marine of America ; how 
then must I be humbled were I to accept a 
letter of marque ! I should, my lord, esteem 
myself inexcusable were I to accept even a 
commission of equal or superior denomination 
to that I bear, unless I were previously autho- 
rized by Congress, or some other competent 
authority in Europe." That the Serapis, the 
prize for which he had so bravely contended, 
had been taken from him, was another of 
the wrongs which rankled deeply in Jones's 
soul. 

Jones must have got a great deal of satis- 
faction, however, from the fact that he con- 
tinued defiantly to wave the American flag 
from the Alliance, and that he delayed his 
enforced departure, in spite of great pressure 
from the admiral of the Dutch fleet, until 
December 26, when with the Alliance he 
dashed out of the harbor "under his best 
American colors," ran the gauntlet of the 
British fleet cruising outside, and escaped 
into the open sea. 

Before leaving the Texel, Jones, on Decem- 



7G PAUL JONES 

ber 17, 1779, wrote Dr. Bancroft : " I am 
sure that the strain put upon the relations 
between Holland and England must end in 
rupture between them within this year." 

War was indeed declared between England 
and Holland on December 19, 1780, and in 
the bill of grievances set forth in the procla- 
mation of a state of war against Holland, the 
statement is made : " That, in violation of 
treaty, they [the States-General] suffered an 
American Pirate (one Paul Jones, a Rebel, 
and State Criminal) to remain several weeks 
in one of their ports." 

It is clear, therefore, that Jones's pertina^ 
cious stay in the Dutch port brought about 
important results. 

Another instance of Jones's sang-froid in 
matters where time was given for his judg- 
ment to come into play, was the way he 
treated Landais at the Texel. On his arrival 
at that port Jones sent to Dr. Eranldin 
charges against the captain of the Alliance, 
whom he removed from command. Where- 
upon Landais sent Jones a challenge to a duel. 
Fanning narrates : " But the latter [Jones], 



DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 77 

perhaps not thinking it prudent to expose 
liimself with a single combatant, who was a 
complete master of the smallsword, declined." 
In the second edition of his memoir Fanning 
said that Jones accepted Landais's challenge, 
but insisted on substituting pistols, with which 
he was an expert, for swords, a proposition 
which Landais refused. 

Although again on the sea and free from 
the irritations of the Texel, Jones, when he 
had eluded the British fleet, found plenty of 
other things to annoy him. He had fortu- 
nately transferred many of his trustworthy 
men from the Serapis to the Alliance, but 
there were enough of the latter ship's old 
officers and men to divide the crew into two 
hostile camps. The discontent at the delay 
over payment of wages and prize money had 
deepened. Although the crew was large, 
fierce in temper, and at first very anxious 
to look for further prizes, they yet, after 
the cruise had continued for some time 
without success, refused to continue unless 
they were paid. Jones, in order to induce 
them to embark from Corunna, Spain, where 



78 PAUL JONES 

the Alliance had put in for repairs and pro- 
visions, promised that he would sail imme- 
diately for L'Orient, where they should 
receive their prize money. As soon as he 
was again at sea, however, Jones informed 
his officers that he intended to make a 
further cruise of twenty days. Fanning, 
one of the officers, quotes Jones : — 

" ' And,' says he, with a kind of contemp- 
tuous smile, which he was much addicted to, 
' Gentlemen, you cannot conceive what an 
additional honor it would be to all of us, if in 
cruising a few days we should have the good 
luck to fall in with an English frigate of our 
force and carry her in with us. . . . This 
would crown our former victories, and our 
names, in consequence thereof, would be 
handed down to latest posterity by some 
faithful historian of our country. ' " Fanning 
adds in a footnote : " Jones had a wonderful 
notion of his name being handed down to 
posterity." 

When the officers remonstrated on the 
ground that the men were badly clothed, 
Jones flew into a rage and ordered them to 



DIPLOMACY AT THE TEXEL 79 

go to their duty. He found, however, that 
he could not, with a mutinous crew, con- 
tinue his course effectively, and reluctantly 
sailed for L'Orient, where he arrived on 
February 10, 1780. 



vn 

SOCIETY IN PAEIS 

The following year, passed mainly in 
France, at Paris or L'Orient, was spent by 
Jones in trying to collect prize money, se- 
cure an important command, and in society, 
where he shone more resplendently than ever. 
He w^rote rather more than his usual large 
number of letters, — to Franklin, Robert 
Morris, the Duchesse de Chartres, Arthur 
Lee, Dr. Bancroft, and many others, — in 
practically all of them urging some one of 
his warmly desired projects. 

His correspondence with Benjamin Frank- 
lin was largely about prize money and the 
expense of repairing the Alliance, which he 
undertook to do immediately on his arrival 
at L'Orient. The frugal doctor attempted 
to curb, in the matter of expense, the free- 
handed Jones. The latter had an enormous 
respect for Franklin, and it is quite likely 



SOCIETY IN PARIS 81 

that he attempted to be economical, but he 
seems to have been less successful in that 
direction than in any other. Fanning speaks 
of the " great and unnecessary expense " 
involved in Jones's elaborate alterations, and 
narrates how, at a later period, when Jones 
was in command of the Ariel, anchored in 
the harbor at L' Orient, a magnificent spec- 
tacle was given on board for the entertain- 
ment of the ladies and gentlemen invited by 
Jones. A mock fight between the Bonhomme 
Richard and the Serapis, in which vast quan- 
tities of ammunition were destroyed, took 
place. The vessel was finely carpeted and 
decorated, a regal banquet was served, mili- 
tary music played, and in general " neither 
cash nor pains," says Fanning, " were spared 
in order that the scene every way should 
appear magnificent." Although the hero 
never seemed to take account of the extreme 
poverty of the infant republic, it is only fair 
to add that he spent his own money as freely 
as any one else's, and that he often served 
without pay, a fact continually attested to 
by himself in his letters and journals. 



82 PAUL JONES 

Jones's lack of success, in spite of his 
energetic attempts in collecting at this time 
the prize money, about which there were many 
annoying technicalities, increased the dis- 
content of his crew, and prepared the way 
for the seizure of the Alliance by the mad 
Landais. Arthur Lee, formerly one of the 
American commissioners in Europe, had 
always been hostile to Jones and unsjnn- 
pathetic with Dr. Franklin and with the 
revolutionary party generally; to such a 
degree, indeed, that he was accused, not un- 
justly, of treachery to the cause of American 
independence. At the time that the Alliance 
was at L'Orient, Lee was waiting an oppor- 
tunity to return to America. Captain Lan- 
dais, who had been deprived of the command 
of the Alliance by order of Benjamin Frank- 
lin, then the sole representative of the 
United States in France, and who had like- 
wise been ordered by the doctor to report to 
the Marine Committee on the charge of infa- 
mous conduct, planned to take the Alliance 
from Jones, and was supported in the attempt 
by Lee, who contended that neither Franklin 



SOCIETY IN PARIS 83 

nor Jones could deprive Landais of a com- 
mand given him by Congress. Lee's desire 
to take the ship from Jones was augmented 
by the latter's refusal to make room for the 
ex-commissioner's many effects, inchiding 
two fine coaches, — space which was much 
needed for the accommodation of supplies for 
Washing-ton's army. 

Lee and Landais consequently encouraged 
the discontent among the crew of the Alli- 
ance, and one day, June 13, when Jones was 
on shore at L'Orient, Landais went on board 
the ship, and, supported by his old officers 
and by Lee, took possession. When Jones 
heard of it he was very angry, and acted, 
according to Fanning, " more like a madman 
than a conqueror ; " but, as usual, his anger 
was quickly controlled and the definite steps 
he took in the affair were marked by great 
moderation. The commandant of the defenses 
at L'Orient had received orders from the 
French government to fire on the Alliance, if 
Landais should attempt to take her out of 
the harbor ; and it seems he would have 
obeyed and probably sunk the ship, had not 



84 PAUL JONES 

Jones himseK interfered, and induced him 
to stay his hand. In a letter to Franklin, 
Jones said : — 

" Your humanity will, I know, justify the 
part I acted in preventing a scene that would 
have made me miserable the rest of my life." 

Jones was probably not over sorry to lose 
the Alliance. There was nothing very thrill- 
ing in the prospect of carrying supplies to 
America, and Jones at that time hoped fer- 
vently to get hold of the Serapis and other 
ships and make another warlike cruise against 
the coast of England. So Landais sailed 
away with the Alliance, but to his own ruin, 
as the clear-sighted Jones had predicted in 
a remarkable letter written a short time 
before the ship sailed to a mutinous officer 
on the Alliance. On the voyage Landais's 
eccentricity caused his friend Lee to put him 
under arrest, and on the arrival in America, 
a court of inquiry found him unfit for com- 
mand, and he never again burdened the ser- 
vice. 

Jones was left at L'Orient with the little 
Ariel, armed with eighteen twelve-pounders 



SOCIETY IN PARIS 85 

and four six-pounders, a ship loaned by the 
king to Dr. Franklin, and with high hopes, 
as usual, of more glorious opportunities. 
But many months intervened before he sailed 
again, — a time he devoted to business and 
society. As Jones and his interesting mid- 
shipman Fanning separated at the end of 
this period, the latter' s final impressions of 
his captain may here be given : — 

" Captain Jones was a man of about five 
feet six inches high,well shaped below his head 
and shoulders, rather round shouldered, with 
a visage fierce and warlike, and wore the ap- 
pearance of great application to study, which 
he was fond of. He was an excellent sea- 
man and knew naval tactics as well as almost 
any man of his age ; but it must be allowed 
that his character was somewhat tinctured 
with bad qualities ... his courage and brav- 
ery as a naval commander cannot be doubted. 
His smoothness of tongue and flattery to sea- 
men when he wanted them was persuasive, 
and in which he excelled any other man I 
was ever acquainted with. . . . His pride 
and vanity while at Paris and Amsterdam 
was not generally approved of." 



86 PAUL JONES 

Fanning has many anecdotes to relate in 
regard to Jones's affairs of gallantry of an 
humble character. Several of Jones's bio- 
graphers have dwelt upon the gorgeous and 
aristocratic nature of the hero's amours. 
Fanning has the solitary distinction of nar- 
rating the other side. Jones, indeed, was a 
good deal of a snob, but he was broadly ap- 
preciative of the fair sex. He probably was 
never deeply in love with anybody, certainly 
not with any woman of humble character. 
Of such his appreciation was of a simple 
and earthly kind. 

Although Jones seems to have had no in- 
timate friends, with possibly one exception, 
there certainly was about him a very strong 
charm, which made him a favorite in good 
society. He had a flattering tongue, a ready 
wit, and a gallant manner. Of Jones's at- 
tractions Benjamin Franklin once wrote to 
a woman : — 

" I must confess to your Ladyship that when 
face to face with him neither man nor, so far 
as I can learn, woman can for a moment re- 
sist the strange magnetism of his presence, 



SOCIETY IN PARIS 87 

the indescribable charm of his manner, a 
commingling of the most compliant deference 
with the most perfect self-esteem that I have 
ever seen in a man ; and, above all, the 
sweetness of his voice and the purity of his 
language." 

Mr. Varnum of Rhode Island, who met 
Jones only in connection with public busi- 
ness, said of him : — 

" I confess there was a magic about his 
way and manner that I have never before 
seen. Whatever he said carried conviction 
with it." 

Even more sensible of Jones's charms than 
the men were the women, who were universally 
dazzled by the brilliant hero. Miss Edes- 
Herbert, an Englishwoman living in Paris, 
writes, among other flattering things about 
him : — 

" Since my last, the famous Paul Jones 
has dined here and also been present at after- 
noon teas. If I am in love with him, for 
love I may die, I am sure, because I have as 
many rivals as there are ladies." 

She records that Jones wrote verses for 



88 PAUL JONES 

the ladies extempore, and gives a sample, the 
sentiments of which are as characteristic of 
the declamatory century as of the naively 
vain Jones : — 

" Insulted Freedom bled, — I felt her cause, 
And drew my sword to vindicate her laws. 
From principle, and not from vain applause. 
I 've done my best ; self-interest far apart, 
And self-reproach a stranger to my heart ; 
My zeal still prompts, ambitious to pursue 
The foe, ye fair, of liberty and you : 
Grateful for praise, spontaneous and unbought, 
A generous people's love not meanly sought ; 
To merit this, and bend the knee to beauty, 
Shall be my earliest and latest duty." 

Many of Jones's flowery letters to distin- 
guished women are preserved. On one occa- 
sion he wrote to a certain countess, informing 
her that he was composing a secret cipher 
for a key to their correspondence, and added : 
" I beseech you to accept the within lock (of 
hair). I am sorry that it is now eighteen 
inches shorter than it was three months ago." 

The only case in which Jones's affections 
seem to have reached beyond good nature, 
common kindness, or gallantry, to the point of 
love, was that of Aimee de Thelison. She was 



SOCIETY IN PARIS 89 

the natural daughter of Louis XV., and this 
fact no doubt greatly heightened her interest 
in the eyes of the aristocratic Jones. She 
was a person of beauty and charm, and felt 
deep love for Jones. His love for her was 
of a cool character, which did not interfere 
with any of the enterprises taking him so 
frequently away from Paris. His letters to 
her are with one exception hardly love letters. 
The warmest words in that exception are : — 

" The last French packet brought no letter 
to me from the person whose happiness is 
dearer to me than anything else. . . . Your 
silence makes even honors insipid." 

It was while Jones was waiting thus gayly 
to sail for America, that the king of France 
bestowed upon him, in recognition of his ser- 
vices to the common cause, the Royal Order of 
Military Merit and a gold-mounted sword of 
honor, and made him Chevalier of France. It 
was, as Jones himself frequently wrote, a sin- 
gular honor, he being the first alien to be made 
a French chevalier ; and Jones prized tliis 
favor from a king more than he would the 
gift of a million dollars. The gold sword 



90 PAUL JONES 

also pleased him deeply, and lie asked the 
countess to whom he had sent the lock of 
hair to keep it for him, lest he lose it. He 
wrote of this gift : — 

" His Majesty ordered a superb sword to 
be made for me, which I have since received, 
and it is called much more elegant than that 
presented to the Marquis de la Fayette." 



VIII 

PRIVATE AMBITION AND PUBLIC BUSINESS 

Benjamin Franklin, knowing the value 
of the supplies to Washington's army, had im- 
plored Jones to embark several months be- 
fore the little Ariel actually set sail, October 
8, 1780. But Jones, hoping for an impor- 
tant command in Europe, and delayed by 
business in connection with fitting out his 
ship, and perhaps by the gayeties he was 
engaged in at Paris, did not show much con- 
cern over General Washington's distress. 
When he finally did sail, he encountered a 
terrible storm, and it was only the best of 
seamanship which enabled him to avoid sliip- 
wreck. As it was, he was compelled to put 
back for repairs to L' Orient, where, in a 
series of letters, he manoeuvred in vain for 
the loan of the fine ship Terpsichore. 

It was not until December 18 that the 
Ariel got under way again for America. 



92 PAUL JONES 

The voyage was uneventful, with the excep- 
tion of a night battle with a British privateer 
sloop of inferior force. Jones cleverly con- 
cealed his greater strength, and thus lured 
the Englishman to engage. After a ten- 
minute fight, the Triumph struck its colors, 
but, when the Ariel ceased firing, sailed away 
and escaped, to Jones's exceeding mortifica- 
tion. 

" The English captain," he wrote in his 
journal, " may properly be called a knave, 
because after he surrendered his ship, begged 
for and obtained quarter, he basely ran away, 
contrary to the laws of naval war and the 
practice of civilized nations." 

Paul Jones, when he arrived in Philadel- 
phia, the 18th of February, 1781, was 
thirty-three years old and had actively served 
in the United States navy for five years and 
five months. He never fought another battle 
under the United States flag ; indeed, with 
the exception of his distressing experiences in 
Russia, he never fought again under any flag. 
But to his dying day he did not cease to 
plan great naval deeds and to hope for greater 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 93 

opportunity to harass the enemy — any enemy. 
In view of his great ambition and ability, cir- 
cmnstances allowed him to accomplish little. 
He had only one opportunity, and the way he 
responded made him famous ; but though it 
brought him honor it did not satisfy him, and 
the rest of his life was a series of disappoint- 
ments. His bitterness grew apace, and be- 
fore he died he was a genuinely pathetic 
figure. 

Soon after Jones's arrival at Philadelphia, 
the Board of Admiralty required him to give 
" all the information in his power relative to 
the detention of the clothing and arms in 
France intended for Washington's army ; " 
and a series of forty-seven questions, on the 
subject not only of the delay but also on 
matters connected generally with his cruises, 
were submitted to him. He attributed, with 
probable justice, the instigation of this inves- 
tigation to his enemy Arthur Lee, whom he 
desired in consequence to challenge to a duel. 
He was dissuaded, however, from this step, 
as well as from the publication of a paper he 
had written called "Arthur Lee in France," 



94 PAUL JONES 

in which he made a circumstantial charge 
against Lee of " treason, perfidy, and the 
office of a spy," by some of his distinguished 
friends, including Morris and Livingston. 

Without either the duel or the publication 
of the paper, Jones was, however, completely 
vindicated. He answered the questions with 
clearness and skill, to the complete satisfac- 
tion of the board, which recommended that 
Congress confer on the hero some distin- 
guished mark of approbation. A committee 
was appointed to question Jones personally, 
and the impression he made upon it is another 
proof of the remarkable suavity, plausibility 
and magnetism of the man. One of the 
examining committeemen wrote : — 

" From his beginning no one thought of 
disputing him. Toward the end we seldom 
ventured to ask him any questions. He made 
himself master of the situation throughout. 
At the end the committee felt honored by 
having had the privilege of listening to him." 

On the committee's recommendation Con- 
gress, which had already on Jones's arrival 
resolved " that Congress entertain a high 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 95 

sense of the distinguished bravery and mili- 
tary conduct of John Paul Jones, Esq., cap- 
tain in the navy of the United States, and 
particularly in his victory over the British 
frigate Serapis," gave Jones a further vote 
of thanks, " for the zeal, prudence, and in- 
trepidity with which he has supported the 
honor of the American flag ; for his bold and 
successful enterprises to redeem from cap- 
tivity the citizens of these States who had fal- 
len under the power of the enemy, and in gen- 
eral for the good conduct and eminent ser- 
vices by which he has added lustre to his 
character and to the American arms." 

Soon after, the intrepid man to whom were 
given so many testimonials and so few satis- 
factory commands received an appreciative 
letter from General Washington, who, after 
stating his satisfaction with Jones's explana- 
tion of the delay of the supplies, said : — 

" Whether our naval affairs have in gen- 
eral been well or ill conducted would be pre- 
sumptuous in me to determine. Instances of 
bravery and good conduct in several of our 
officers have not, however, been wanting. 



96 PAUL JONES 

Delicacy forbids me to mention that particu- 
lar instance whicli lias attracted the admira- 
tion of all the world and which has influenced 
the most illustrious monarch to confer a mark 
of his favor which can only be obtained by a 
long and honorable service or by the perform- 
ance of some brilliant action." 

It now seemed to Jones a favorable oppor- 
tunity to improve his rank, and on May 28 
he sent a memorial to Congress reiterating 
his claims to stand above the captains who 
had been unjustly put ahead of him. He 
failed, probably on account of the political 
influence wielded by the captains ; but in the 
way of compensation he was appointed com- 
mander of the new vessel then building at 
Portsmouth, a seventy-four, called the Amer- 
ica, the only ship of the line owned by the 
States, — a " singular honor," as he expressed 
it. John Adams, who had at one time been 
unfriendly to Jones, looking upon him as 
" a smooth, plausible, and rather capable 
adventurer," wrote him, a propos of this 
appointment : — 

" The command of the America could not 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 97 

have been more judiciously bestowed, and it 
is with impatience that I wish her at sea, 
v/here she will do honor to her name." 

Jones had hoped to join Washington's 
army, then campaigning against Cornwallis, 
as a volunteer, but he cheerfully gave up this 
exciting prospect in order to prepare the 
America for sea, — " the most lingering and 
disagreeable task," he wrote, " he had been 
charged with during the whole of the war." He 
did his job with his usual efficiency, however, 
and with his usual extravagance, which he 
called simplicity. He wrote in his journal : 
" The plan which Captain Jones projected for 
the sculpture expressed dignity and simplicity. 
The head was a female figure crowned with 
laurels. The right arm was raised, with the 
forefinger pointing to heaven. . . . On the 
left arm was a buckler, with a blue ground 
and thirteen silver stars. The legs and feet 
were covered here and there with wreaths of 
smoke, to represent the dangers and difficul- 
ties of war. On the stern, under the windows of 
the great cabin, appeared two large figures in 
bas-relief, representing Tyranny and Oppres- 



98 PAUL JONES 

sion, bound and biting the ground, with the 
cap of Liberty on a pole above their heads. 
On the back part of the starboard quarter 
was a large Neptune ; and on the back part of 
the larboard quarter gallery, a large Mars." 

As a reward for all this industry and aes- 
thetic effort Jones had another disappoint- 
ment ; for in August, 1782, the French 
seventy-four gunship, the Magnifique, was 
wrecked at the entrance to Boston harbor, 
and Congress gave the America to the king 
of France. 

With undaunted energy Jones now at- 
tempted to get hold of the South Carolina, 
originally called the Indien, which he had 
formerly, when he crossed the ocean in the 
Ranger, failed to secure. She was now, under 
the new name, in the service of the States, 
and Kobert Morris tried to turn her over to 
Jones, that he might again " harass the en- 
emy." But the plan failed, and Jones re- 
mained without a command. Unable to rest, 
although his health had for some time been 
failing, he now requested and obtained con- 
sent " to embark as a volunteer in pursuit of 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 99 

military marine knowledge with the Marquis 
de Vaudreuil, in order to enable him the bet- 
ter to serve his country when America should 
increase her navy." He went off, accord- 
ingly, on the cruise with the French fleet ; but 
the expedition, during the course of which 
peace was declared, was uneventful, and, 
Jones, who had had an attack of fever, spent 
the summer of 1783 quietly in the town of 
Bethlehem. In the following November, 
however, he renewed his activity, and on his 
application was appointed by Congress agent 
to collect all moneys due from the sale of 
the prizes taken in European waters by ves- 
sels under his conmiand. 

Although money was subordinate, in 
Jones's mind, to glory and the opportunity for 
action, he was an excellent business man. His 
commercial transactions had been successful 
enough to enable him to pay with his own re- 
sources the crews of the Alfred and Provi- 
dence, so that when he set sail in the Ranger 
he had advanced XI 5 00 to the United States. 
After the close of the war, at a period of 
comparative inactivity, he began a profitable 
Life. 



100 PAUL JONES 

trade in illuminating oils, and in Ms character 
as prize money agent he continued to show 
his business dexterity. He began a long 
campaign of a year of most pertinacious and 
vigorous dunning for money due the United 
States, himself, and the officers and sailors 
under his command. He wrote innumerable 
letters to Franklin, to de Castries, the new 
Minister of Marine, to de Vergennes, Minis- 
ter of Foreign Affairs ; to many others, and 
prepared for the king a careful account of 
his cruises, in order to show that prize money 
was due. In arguing for all that he could 
get he showed great acuteness, legal sense, 
and, beyond everything, invincible determin- 
ation. He also again demonstrated his happy 
talent for abuse of those who stood in his 
way. He finally secured the allowance of 
his claims ; and the settlements, which began 
in January, 1784, were completed, as far as 
France was concerned, in July, 1785. He 
was paid 181,000 livres, which he turned 
over, less deductions for expenses and his 
own share of the prize money, to Thomas Jef- 
ferson, then minister to France, who approved 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 101 

the account. Jones charged for his ordinary 
expenses, however, the sum of 48,000 livres 
and his share of prize money was 13,000 
livres, a total of 61,000 livres, a generous 
allowance. One of the free-handed man's 
biographers, A. S. MacKenzie, pointed out 
that Jones " charged his shipmates for his 
expenses, during less than two years, more 
than General Washington did the people of 
the United States throughout the Revolution- 
ary War." 

The next public business of Jones was to 
attempt to collect indemnity from the Danish 
government for the delivery to England of 
the prizes sent by the mad Landais, during 
Jones's most famous cruise, to Bergen, Den- 
mark. He delayed his trip to Copenhagen, 
however, for a number of reasons. At this 
time he was carrying on several private busi- 
ness enterprises of importance, was occupied 
with society in London and Paris, and was 
eagerly desirous of being sent by the French 
government against the Dey of Algiers, who 
held in bondage many Christians. At various 
times during his career Jones showed a keen 



102 PAUL JONES 

sense of the wrongs inflicted on Americans 
by the Barbary pirates in search of tribute, 
and in his letters to Jefferson and others he 
often suggested plans for their extermination. 
For de Vergennes and de Castries he pre- 
pared a memorandum urging the necessity 
of a movement against the pirates, and ably 
pointing out the good that would accrue 
therefrom to the world, and particularly to 
France, to which nation he attributed future 
dominion in North Africa, provided action 
was taken in time to forestall Great Britain. 

" The knowledge of the race persuades 
me," he wrote, " that England will soon in- 
vade the Mediterranean — doubtless as soon 
as she recovers from the exhaustion of the 
late war." 

The United States, however, were after 
the war lacking so completely in resources 
that a war with the pirates was impossible, 
and France was on the brink of her great 
Revolution, and had more important things 
to consider. So Jones died before the exj)edi- 
tion for which he had so ardently hoped, and 
which brought so much honor, as he had 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 103 

predicted, to tlie man who commanded it — 
Commodore Dale, once Jones's first lieuten- 
ant on the Bonhomme Richard — was dis- 
patched. 

Jones finally set off for Copenhagen to 
collect the indemnity from the Danish gov- 
ernment ; but hearing of a crisis in an im- 
portant business matter in which he was 
interested, he made, before arriving at his 
destination, a flying trip to America. While 
there, he was awarded a gold medal by Con- 
gress, and said in his journal that such a 
medal had been given to only six officers. 

'' To General Washington, for the capture 
of Boston ; General Gates, for the capture 
of Burgoyne's army ; General Wayne, for 
the taking of Rocky Point ; . . . General 
Morgan, for having defeated and destroyed 
a detachment of 1100 officers and soldiers 
of the best troops of England, with 900 
militia merely ; General Greene, for having 
scored a decisive victory on the enemy at 
Euta Spring. . . . But aU these medals, 
although well merited, were given in mo- 
ments of enthusiasm. I had the unique sat- 



104 PAUL JONES 

isfaction of receiving the same honor, by the 
unanimous voice of the United States assem- 
bled in Congress, the sixteenth October, 
1787, in memory of the services which I 
rendered eight years earlier." 

It was not until January, 1788, that Paul 
Jones arrived at Copenhagen, where, during 
his short stay, he was magnificently enter- 
tained by the court. The negotiations for 
the indemnity, which he began almost imme- 
diately, were abruptly terminated by the 
transfer of the matter for settlement to 
Paris. Jones, on the day he agreed to 
suspend the negotiations, received from the 
Danish government a patent for a pension 
of 1500 crowns a year, " for the respect he 
had shown the Danish flag while he com- 
manded in the European seas." Jones kept 
this transaction, for which he possibly felt 
ashamed, to himself, until several years after- 
wards, when, writing to Jefferson, he said : 
" I have felt myself in an embarrassing situ- 
ation, with regard to the king's patent, and 
I have not yet made use of it, though three 
years have elapsed since I received it." 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 105 

On Jones's return to Paris from America, 
previous to his Copenhagen trip, the Russian 
ambassador to France, Baron Simolin, had 
made, through Mr. Jefferson, a proposition 
looking to the appointment of the conqueror 
of the Serapis to a position in the navy of 
Kussia, then about to war with the Turks. 
Simolin wrote Catherine II. of Russia that, 
" with the chief command of the fleet and 
carte hlancJie he would undertake that in a 
year Paul Jones would make Constantinople 
tremble." This exciting possibility was no 
doubt constantly in Jones's mind while he 
was at Copenhagen, and probably increased 
his willingness to dismiss the indemnity 
negotiations. He began immediately to ma- 
noeuvre for the highest command possible. 
He demurred to the rank of captain-com- 
mandant, equal to that of major-general in 
the army, and maintained that nothing less 
than rear-admiral was fitting. He laid the 
account of all his deeds and honors before 
the dazzled Russian minister at Copenhagen, 
and said : " The unbounded admiration and 
profound respect which I have long felt for the 



106 PAUL JONES 

glorious character of her Imperial Majesty, 
forbids the idea that a sovereign so mag- 
nanimous should sanction any arrangement 
that may give pain at the outset to the man 
she deigns to honor with her notice, and who 
wishes to devote himself entirely to her ser- 
vice." In order to be in a better position for 
extorting honors from the empress, Jones 
wrote Jefferson suggesting that Congress 
bestow upon him the rank of rear-admiral; 
and took occasion to assert, on the eve of 
taking service under a despot, the undying 
character of his love for America. 

" I am not forsaking," he wrote, " the 
country that has had so many distinguished 
and difficult proofs of my affection ; and can 
never renounce the glorious title of a cit- 
izen of the United States.^' [Italics are 
Jones's]. 

Jones left Copenhagen on his ill-fated 
Russian mission, April 11, and made a fly- 
ing and perilous trip to St. Petersburg. He 
crossed the ice-blocked Baltic in a small boat, 
compelled, at the muzzle of his pistols, the 
unwilling boatmen to proceed, and on his ar- 



AMBITION AND BUSINESS 107 

rival at liis destination, on April 23, was pre- 
sented to the empress, who conferred upon 
Mm the coveted rank of rear-admiral, to the 
intense irritation of many of the English 
officers in the service of Russia, who looked 
upon Jones as a red-handed pirate. In 
June Catherine wrote to her favorite at the 
time : "I am sorry that all the officers are 
raging about Paul Jones. I hope fervently 
that they will cease their mad complaints, 
for he is necessary to us." In 1792, long 
after the war in which Jones had played a 
part, Catherine said, with a different accent : 
" Ce Paul Jones etait une bien mauvaise 
tete." Certainly Jones's diplomacy, which 
was of a direct character, was not equal to 
his present situation, unfamiliar to him, and 
for success demanding conduct tortuous and 
insincere to an Oriental degree. Jones, in 
comparison with his associates in Russia, was 
remarkably truthful, — a trait which involved 
him in humiliating difficulties, and which was 
a source of irritation to the empress and to 
all concerned. 



IX 

IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 

Paul Jones left St. Petersburg on 
May 7, to take command of the Russian 
squadron in the Black Sea. Before his 
departure he requested of the empress 
" never to be condemned unheard." This, 
one of the most modest demands Jones ever 
made, was, as the sequel will show, denied 
him. He arrived on the 19th at St. Eliza- 
beth, the headquarters of Prince Potemkin, 
the former favorite of the empress and the 
commander in chief of the war against the 
Turks. Potemkin, under whose orders 
Jones stood, was of a thoroughly despotic 
type. As Potemkin was a prince, Jones 
was at first disposed to flatter him extrava- 
gantly, but the commodore was by nature 
averse to being dictated to, particularly by 
those whom he deemed his inferiors, and it 
was not long before they began to quarrel. 



IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 109 

Paul Jones was put in command of the 
squadron which was to oppose the fleet of 
the Capitan Pacha, and thus help the Russian 
army to take Oczakow, a town lying at the 
junction of the Bog with the Knieper, which 
had been strongly fortified by the Turks. 
Unfortunately, Jones was not only subject to 
the orders of Prince Potemkin, but the im- 
mediate command of the fleet was divided 
between him and a thoroughly incompetent 
and arrogant adventurer, the Prince of Nas- 
sau. Jones commanded the heavier ships, 
forming the squadron, while Nassau was in 
charge of a considerable force of Russian gun- 
boats and barges, composing what was called 
the flotilla. Between Jones and Nassau ex- 
isted extreme jealousy. In fact, the only 
officer in high position with whom Jones 
stood on an amicable footing was the distin- 
guished General Suwarrow. Early in the 
campaign the Russian had advised Jones to 
allow Potemkin to take the credit of any 
success that might result, and to hold his 
tongue, — two things which Jones, unfortu- 
nately, was quite incapable of doing. 



no PAUL JONES 

It is impossible to enter into the details of 
this campaign, but enough may be given to 
explain the difficulties which Jones encoun- 
tered. After some unimportant engagements 
beween the two fleets, an action of importance 
occurred which disclosed the deep differences 
between Jones and his Russian allies. The 
Capitan Pacha attempted to attack the Rus- 
sian fleet, but one of his ships ran aground, 
and the others anchored. Jones saw his op- 
portunity and ordered a general attack on the 
confused Turkish fleet, which cut anchor and 
fled, with Jones in pursuit. The Wolodimer, 
Jones's flagship, steered straight for the 
Capitan Pacha's ship, which ran aground ; 
whereupon one of Jones's officers, without 
orders, dropped the Wolodimer' s anchor. 
In the mean time the flotilla, under Nas- 
sau, lagged behind, and Jones, in order to 
offset the operations of the Turkish flo- 
tilla, which had already destroyed one of 
the Russian frigates, left his anchored flag- 
ship to go in search of Nassau, whom he 
found with his flotilla occupied in firing on 
two Turkish ships which were aground and 



IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 111 

were, moreover, under the guns of the 
Russian ships, and might justly be regarded 
as prizes. Nassau persisted in this useless 
undertaking imtil the enemy's vessels had 
been burned and the crews had perished in 
the flames. When Jones found he was 
unable to withdraw the prince from this 
bloody and unprofitable proceeding, he or- 
dered an attack, with a part of Nassau's 
ships, upon the Turkish flotilla, which was 
soon driven off. 

During the night the Capitan Pacha 
attempted to pass out from the Liman, with 
the remains of his squadron ; but nine of his 
ships grounded, and, being thus brought 
within range of the Russian fort on the ex- 
treme point of Kinburn, were flred upon 
and were practically at the mercy of the 
Russians. Nevertheless, the Prince of 
Nassau advanced in the morning with his 
flotilla, and, to Jones's extreme rage, burned 
the grounded Turkish ships, three thousand 
Turks who were practically prisoners perish- 
ing in the flames. 

On July 1 Nassau, with his flotilla, ad- 



112 PAUL JONES 

vanced against the flotilla of the Turks, but 
did not seem anxious to go within grape- 
shot ; and Jones, with his heavier ships, went 
to capture five Turkish galleys lying under 
the cover of the guns of the Turkish battery 
and flotilla. Two of these galleys were 
captured and the others destroyed. Nassau 
and Alexiano directed their belligerent 
efforts against the captured galleys, one of 
which was — with all the slaves on board, 
— rutlilessly burned. Other Turkish ships 
were likewise needlessly destroyed, a mode 
of warfare quite at variance with the tra- 
ditions of Jones. He expressed his conse- 
quent disgust in terms more genuine than 
diplomatic. 

As a reward of his idiotic actions, on the 
basis of an inflated and dishonest report of 
the battle which was sent to the empress, 
Nassau received a valuable estate, the mili- 
tary order of St. George, and authority to 
hoist the flag of rear-admiral ; other officers 
were also substantially rewarded ; while all 
that was given to Jones, whose honest but 
unflattering report had been rejected by 



IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 113 

Potemkin, was the order of St. Anne. It is 
easy to imagine Jones's bitterness. He says 
in his journal : " If he (Nassau) has received 
the rank of vice-admiral, I will say in the 
face of the universe that he is unworthy 
of it." 

Referring to the cowardice of his associates 
who, in order to escape, he says, provided 
their boats with small chaloupes^ Jones 
writes : — 

" For myseK I took no precautions. I 
saw that I must conquer or die." 

Jones's bitterness, partly justified by the 
facts, seems at this time to have reached 
almost the point of madness, and the quarrel 
between him and his associates increased in 
virulence. In the course of the unimportant 
operations following the defeat of the Turks, 
during which the squadron maintained a 
strict blockade of Oczakow, Jones was sent 
on a number of trivial enterprises by Potem- 
kin, whose language was carefuUy chosen to 
irritate the fiery Scotchman. On one occa- 
sion he commanded Jones " to receive him 
(the Capitan Pacha) courageously, and drive 



114 PAUL JONES 

bim back. I require tbat this be done with- 
out loss of time ; if not, you will be made 
answerable for every neglect." In reply, 
Jones complained of the injustice done his 
officers. Shortly afterwards Jones doubted 
the wisdom of one of Potemkin's orders, 
and wrote : " Every man is master of his 
opinion, and this is mine." When Potem- 
kin again wrote Jones " to defend himself 
courageously," the latter 's annotation was : 
" It wiU be hard to believe that Prince 
Potemkin addressed such words to Paul 
Jones." To the prince he wrote in terms 
alternately flattering and complaining : — 

" Your Highness has so good a heart that 
you will excuse the hastiness of expression 
which escaped me. I am anxious to con- 
tinue in the service." 

But the despotic Potemkin had made up his 
mind that he could not get along with Paul 
Jones, and with an indirectness characteristic 
of him, secured an order for the latter for ser- 
vice " in the northern seas." This was practi- 
cally a dismissal for Jones, who returned in 
virtual disgrace to St. Petersburg, where 



IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 115 

lie hoped to be put in command of the 
Baltic fleet. Catherine, however, was now 
sincerely anxious to get rid of Jones, but 
on account of his powerful friends in France 
did not dare to do so openly. She had 
"condemned him unheard," and repeated 
her injustice in a still more pointed way ; 
for in March, 1789, while Jones was 
waiting for the command which never 
came, he was falsely accused of an atro- 
cious crime and forbidden to approach the 
palace of the empress, being again " con- 
demned unheard." Had it not been for 
the French ambassador, de Segur, who had 
a strong influence on Catherine, the crime 
might always have been attributed to Paul 
Jones. De Segur, however, proved to Cath- 
erine that Jones was the victim of a plot, and 
she was forced to recall the unfortunate 
man to court. Soon afterwards Jones, who 
had for a long time been greatly suffering in 
health, was given two years' leave of absence. 
Paul Jones's experience in Russia was the 
most unfortunate part of an unfortunate 
career. His services to that country, which 



116 PAUL JONES 

were considerable, were never recognized. 
His report of the Liman campaign had been 
rejected, and he had been unjustly deposed 
from the actual command and an empty 
promise substituted. His letters had been 
systematically intercepted, and he was a 
victim, not only of a detestable plot involv- 
ing his moral character, but of many other 
charges equally virulent and untrue. 

It was grotesquely reported, for instance, 
that he had murdered his nephew, who in 
reality did not exist. The leave of absence, 
moreover, must have been to a man of his 
spirit a severe blow. 

At the close of the journal of the Liman 
campaign Jones's bitterness is pathetically 
expressed in inflated self-praise, called out 
by the desire to confute the calumnies of his 
enemies. " Every one to whom I have the 
honor to be known," he wrote, " is aware 
that I am the least selfish of mankind. . . . 
This is known to the whole American people. 
. . . Have I not given proofs sufficiently 
striking that I have a heart the most sensi- 
tive, a soul the most elevated ? . . , I am 



IN THE RUSSIAN SERVICE 117 

the only man in the world that possesses a 
sword given by the king of France . . . but 
what completes my happiness is the esteem 
and friendship of the most virtuous of men, 
whose fame will be immortal ; and that a 
Washington, a Franklin, a D'Estaing, a La 
Fayette, think the bust of Paul Jones worthy 
of being placed side by side with their own. 
. . . Briefly, I am satisfied with myself." 



LAST DAYS 

On August 18, 1789, Paul Jones left St. 
Petersburg, never to return, and never again 
to fight a battle. He was only forty-two 
years old, but although his ambition was as 
intense as ever, his health had through un- 
remitting exertions and exposure become un- 
dermined. For many years the active man 
had not known what it was to sleep four 
hours at a time, and now his left lung was 
badly affected, and he had only a few years 
more to live. After an extended tour, de- 
voted mainly to business and society, — dur- 
ing the course of which he met Kosciusko 
at Warsaw, visited, among other cities, 
Vienna, Munich, Strassburg, and London, — 
Jones reached Paris, where Aimee de Theli- 
son and his true home were, on May 30, 
1790. He resigned from his position in the 



LAST DAYS 119 

Eussian navy, and remained most of the 
time until his death in the French capital. 

The great French Revolution had taken 
place ; and Paul Jones occupied the position, 
unusual for him, of a passive spectator of 
great events. Acquainted with men of all 
parties, with Bertrand Barere, Carnot, Robe- 
spierre, and Danton, as well as with the 
more conservative men with whom his own 
past had led him to sympatliize, — Lafayette, 
Mirabeau, and Malesherbes, — Jones's last 
days were not lacking in picturesque oppor- 
tunity for observation. He felt great sym- 
pathy for the king, with whom he had been 
acquainted, and who had bestowed upon him 
the title of chevalier and the gold sword. 
For Mirabeau, as for other really great men 
Jones knew, — Franklin, Washington, and 
Suwarrow, — he had extreme admiration, 
and on the occasion of the famous French- 
man's death wrote : "I have never seen or 
read of a man capable of such mastery over 
the passions and the follies of such a mob. 
There is no one to take the place of Mira- 
beau." Of the mob Jones wrote with aris- 



120 PAUL JONES 

tocratic hatred : " There have been many 
moments when my heart turned to stone 
towards those who call themselves ' the peo- 
ple ' in France. More than once have I 
harbored the wish that I might be intrusted 
by Lafayette with the command of the 
Palace, with carte hlanche to defend the 
constitution; and that I might have once 
more with me, if only for one day, my old 
crews of the Eanger, the Eichard, and the 
Alliance ! I surely would have made the 
thirty cannon of the courtyard teach to 
that mad rabble the lesson that grapeshot 
has its uses in struggles for the rights of 
man ! " 

Jones always had much to say on the 
organization of navies and the principles of 
naval warfare. About this time he wrote a 
letter to Admiral Kersaint, of the French 
navy, in which he criticised fearlessly and 
trenchantly the naval tactics of the French. 
Their policy, he explained, was to " neutral- 
ize the power of their adversaries, if possible, 
by gTand manoeuvres rather than to destroy 
it by grand attack ; " and objecting to this 



LAST DAYS 121 

policy, the dashing Jones, who always de- 
sired to " get alongside the enemy," wrote : 
" Their (the French) combinations have 
been superb ; but as I look at them, they 
have not been harmful enough ; they have 
not been calculated to do as much capturing 
or sinking of ships, and as much crippling 
or killing of seamen, as true and lasting suc- 
cess in naval warfare seems to me to demand. 
. . . Should France thus honor me [with a 
command] it must be with the unqualified 
understanding that I am not to be restricted 
by the traditions of her naval tactics ; but 
with full consent that I may, on suitable 
occasion, to be decreed by my judgment on 
the spot, try conclusions with her foes to the 
bitter end or to death, at shorter range and 
at closer quarters than have hitherto been 
sanctioned by her tactical authorities." 

Paul Jones, although in these last years 
he was forced, more than was agreeable to 
him, to play the role of an intelligent com- 
mentator, remained a man of action to the 
end. He sought, this time in vain, to ex- 
tract from the French government wages 



122 PAUL JONES 

still due the crew of the old Bonhomme 
Richard. His failure brought out an unusu- 
ally bitter letter, in which he again recounted 
his services and the wrongs done him by the 
various ministers of marine. As he grew 
older and more disappointed the deeds he 
had done seemed mountain high to him. 
" My fortitude and self-denial alone dragged 
Holland into the war, a service of the great- 
est importance to this nation; for without 
that great event, no calculation can ascertain 
when the war would have ended. . . . Would 
you suppose that I was driven out of the 
Texel in a single frigate belonging to the 
United States, in the face of forty-two Eng- 
lish ships and vessels posted to cut off my 
retreat ? " 

With equal energy the failing commodore 
never ceased to hope and strive for an im- 
portant command. To head an expedition 
against the Barbary pirates had long been with 
him a favorite scheme, and now he looked for- 
ward eagerly to a position in the French navy. 

By the irony of fate a letter came from 
Mr. Jefferson announcing Jones's appoint- 



LAST DAYS 123 

ment as commissioner for treating with the 
Dey and government of Algiers. But it was 
too late, for before the letter arrived in 
Paris Paul Jones was dead. On July 11, 
1792, a week before he died, he had at- 
tended a session of the French Assembly 
and had made a felicitous speech. He ex- 
pressed his love for America, for France, 
and for the cause of liberty, and regretted 
his faiHng health as interfering with his ac- 
tivity in their service. He closed with the 
pathetic words : — 

" But ill as I am, there is yet something 
left of the man — not the admiral, not the 
chevaher — but the plain, simple man whom 
it delights me to hear you call ' Paul Jones,' 
without any rank but that of fellowship, and 
without any title but that of comrade. So 
now I say to you that whatever is left of 
that man, be it never so faint or feeble, wiU 
be laid, if necessary, upon the altar of 
French Liberty as cheerfully as a child lies 
down to pleasant dreams ! My friends, I 
would love to pursue this theme, but, as you 
see, my voice is failing and my lower limbs 



m PAUL JONES 

become swollen when I stand up too long. 
At any rate I have said enough. I am now 
ready to act whenever and wheresoever bid- 
den by the voice of France." 

Jones's cough and the swelling in his legs 
continued ; a few days later jaundice and 
dropsy set in, and it was clear to his friends 
that the end was near. Aimee de Thelison, 
Gouverneur Morris, and some of the distin- 
guished revolutionists were about him dur- 
ing the last few days of his life. On the 
afternoon of July 18, 1792, his will was 
witnessed, and about seven o'clock in the 
evening he was found in his room, lying 
with his clothes on, face down across the 
middle of the bed, dead. 

The next day the National Assembly passed 
a resolution decreeing " that twelve of its 
members shall assist at the funeral of a man 
who has so well served the cause of liberty." 

True or not, the words attributed to Na- 
poleon after Trafalgar, in 1805, are no more 
than justice to Paul Jones. 

'' How old," Napoleon asked, " was Paul 
Jones when he died ? " 



LAST DAYS 125 

On being told that Jones was forty-five 
years old at the time of his death, Napoleon 
said : — 

" Then he did not fulfill his destiny. Had 
he lived to this time, France might have had 
an admiral." 

Paul Jones has been called by his friends 
patriot, and by his enemies pirate. In real- 
ity he was neither. He was not one of those 
deeply ethical natures that subordinate per- 
sonal glory and success to the common good. 
As an American he cannot be ranked with 
his great contemporaries, for his patriotism 
consisted merely in being fair and devoted 
to the side he had for the time espoused 
rather than in quiet work as a citizen after 
the spectacular opportunity had passed. He 
was ready to serve wherever he saw the best 
chance for himseK, whether it was with the 
United States, Russia, or France. In no 
unworthy sense of the word, however, was 
he an adventurer. The deepest thing in his 
soul, the love of glory, rendered him incapa- 
ble at once of meanness and of true patriot- 
ism. In search for fame he gave up family, 



126 PAUL JONES 

friends, and religion. In these relations* of 
life lie would liave been and was, as far as 
he went, tolerant and kind ; but in them 
he was not interested. Love of glory made 
him a lonely figure. It rendered him a 
j)oseuT^ vain and snobbish, but it also 
spurred him on to contend, with phenomenal 
energy, against almost innumerable diffi- 
culties. 

As far as his deeds are concerned, Paul 
Jones appears in the popular consciousness 
as he really was, — a bolt of effectiveness, a 
desperate, successful fighter, a sea captain 
whose habit was to appear unexpectedly to 
confound his enemies, and then to disappear, 
no one knew where, only to reappear with 
telling effect. He has been the hero of the 
novelists, who, expressing the popular idea, 
have pictured him with essential truth. A 
popular hero, indeed, he was, and will re- 
main so, justly, in the memory of men. 



Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton &* Co. 
Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 



NOV 26 1901 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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